Watch It Burn
by Drizzt1138
Summary: Keith and his friends always talked about what they would do during the zombie apocalypse. But what will they do when it actually comes? My first ongoing, episodic fanfic! Please read, rate and review! Rated T for brief language and violence.
1. Watch It Burn

Watch It Burn

A Walking Dead Fanfic

_For Shan'ika, from your Preshi_

_Ni kar'tayli gar darasuum_

Chapter 1

Watch It Burn

My name is Keith. Before the end of the world, I worked as a registered nurse for NIH. I spent my workdays healing the sick in a medical-surgical unit. Whether through luck or destiny, that job saved my life.

You know the whole "seemingly ordinary day" cliché? That's bullcrap. If something really big is going to go down, something truly catastrophic, you'll know it. Everyone will know it. People in the city, people in the country, everyone. Animals, too. The birds and the deer, dogs and cats, the fish in the river, they know it too. You can feel the intensity in the air, not to mention hear all the people losing their minds. Most of the time, it doesn't even reach the people who freak out the most. Most of the time.

You can usually see the ledge; it's just a question of whether you can stop in time. When I came home that day, the day where we finally reached that ledge, everyone knew something was up. They hadn't quite reached the breaking point, but it was coming up fast.

I came home that day, took off my scrubs and changed into a t-shirt and jeans. I opened up my computer to check my e-mail. I was humming along to "Frozen Sleep" by Malukah when I saw the message from my employer marked _urgent_.

**To: All NIH employees**

**From: Director ****Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D.**

**Subject: Urgent information: potential epidemic**

**Biomedical professionals at the Centers for Disease Control recently identified a new disease. Very little is known about this disease; the area where it was first observed has since gone silent due to unknown circumstances. However, it has been ascertained that:**

** The disease is most likely spread through bodily fluid, especially blood, saliva and any form of discharge. Despite the limited methods of transmission, the disease also appears to be highly contagious. **

** The initial symptoms vary, but usually include extreme fever and an altered state of consciousness. These symptoms invariably result in death, although the amount of time between the point where symptoms first appear and the point where the individual dies varies greatly. **

** After the death of the individual, brain activity somehow starts up again. The individual somehow becomes re-animated, and exhibits very few higher cognitive abilities. The re-animated individual also displays severe aggression and cannibalistic tendencies.**

** No treatment has been found that is effective against the disease.**

**Due to the incredibly dire nature of the situation, all NIH staff are asked to move towards a large population center for protection, preferably one with a NIH campus or facility. They are also asked to be cautious around anyone exhibiting symptoms matching those of the disease. Please visit the NIH website for more information, including instructions about what to do if you suspect you have been infected with this disease.**

I stared at the e-mail for about half an hour before I could collect my thoughts enough to know what I was going to do next. It was so confusing and horrifying and it made me want to scream. So many thoughts were pushing against each other, trying to get my attention, and nothing was able to pass through the bottleneck until I was finally able to calm down and focus. When I was finally able, though, it was clear to me what I would do.

I got out my phone and started writing a text as fast as I could. I sent one to all my contacts in the area:

**S about to HTF; gather everything and everyone you value. Get somewhere safe. I will be leaving the city near the where 270 crosses the Monocacy. **

Then I texted Pablo, my friend from Montgomery County:

**We need to leave; gather a group, meet me at the weigh station between here and there. Stay safe.**

Next I texted my friends from out of state:

**Something bad is coming. Stay away from population centers. Forming a group; will try to text my location if we settle down and I can find a method; conserve the battery on your phones.**

Finally, I texted Sharon:

**Coming over. Be ready for hiking several days, also possibly bring something that can do some damage. Will explain soon. I love you.**

It disturbed me how well prepared I was for this. Yet what young boy doesn't think about what they would do in the zombie apocalypse? Maybe my friends and I were weird, but we did it all the time. We had read all the stories, seen all the movies, and played all the games. We knew how it went down. It scared me, but I knew what I was doing.

I grabbed the shard of flint my Grandpa had given me off my desk. Then I went over to the wall by my bed and took down the picture of Sharon I kept there. I put them both in a backpack, and then went downstairs to fill it with granola bars and water bottles and zipped it up.

From there I went to the garage. I needed a weapon. Up on the wall above the lawnmower, I had a large branch-clipper. I had only really used it once or twice. I wasn't much of a "manicure all the hedges" guy, but every once in a while there were things I just couldn't ignore. So it was still in very good shape.

I pulled it down off the wall and brought it inside. Then I got a screwdriver and started taking off one of the blades. After about ten minutes or so, only one of the blades was left on the pole, forming a makeshift spear. I wrapped the base of the other blade in duct tape, forming a sort of sidearm. I put the newly formed knife in my backpack and carried the spear out with me. I was just about ready to go when I peered across the street.

The Ciao family wasn't home.

* * *

I could barely believe what I was doing. My younger self would never have done something like this. I had changed so much over the years; it was almost like I had become a completely different person.

I walked between the trees that hid the entrance to the dirt pathway that led behind the Ciao residence. I looked around to make sure no one was watching. I jumped up, missing once or twice, but I eventually caught the top of the fence blocking me off from their house. Struggling a bit, I pulled myself up and over.

Once I was in their back yard, it got a lot easier. I took the stairs up to the patio and took a deep breath. I knew I had to work quickly, or else I was screwed. I wouldn't have been doing this at all if I hadn't known that the Ciaos might not be around to care anymore.

After I had collected myself, I picked up my spear and hit the butt against the glass door. It cracked a bit; after a few more whacks, I was able to make a hole large enough to get into the house.

I had chosen to loot this house for one reason and one reason only; I knew that Mr. Ciao was an avid gun collector. Right next to the door was a scoped rifle and some ammunition. Even though I felt bad for breaking in, I immediately knew this was going to pay off well.

Searching through the rest of the house, I found three shotguns, two more rifles, and more ammunition for each. I also found a short bow in the basement, along with a quiver of twelve arrows. I slung the bow over my shoulder, along with the quiver. Then I strapped the guns together with some rope I found, then wrapped it all in a towel and attached it to the backpack.

Despite the dire circumstances, I couldn't help but grin as I remembered a joke from a book I read: "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". According to the fictional guide, the single most important piece of equipment for a traveler to have is a towel. I hoped that was true; if a towel could help me survive the coming storm, I would go loot "Bed, Bath and Beyond" in a second.

It was amazing I had gotten this far. I was working fast, but my hands were shaking. Heart pounding in my chest, I went back out the way I had come. I thought I heard sirens, but then in this area, especially at a time like this, they could have been going anywhere. I made my way back over the fence, being careful not to damage any of my supplies. Once I was back on the ground, I used a different part of the path to get back to my house. Once I had, I got into my car. I had one more errand to run, and then I would leave the city behind. Hopefully before it was in ruins.

* * *

It took me about fifteen minutes to get to Sharon's house. Those minutes felt like so much longer; normally it would be because I was so excited to see her. I wish that had been the case here.

She was waiting for me in the driveway. She was wearing hiking boots, jeans and a sweater. There was a can of Mountain Dew in her hand, and the other held a small black backpack. I stopped the car to let her in.

"Whatcha got?" I peered into the bag as she unzipped it to reveal an axe and a few more cans of soda.

"Really? That's all you're gonna bring?" I looked over at her skeptically, although it was really hard to be mad because of her cherubic face.

"Well you didn't give me much of a heads-up! It was my first instinct; it was all I had time to get!" She acted all pouty, but I could tell I hadn't actually offended her. "So what the hell is this all about? Are we going camping or something?"

I sobered up quickly. "Not quite. Something's going wrong. I got an e-mail from work saying that there may be some kind of epidemic. This is going to sound crazy, but… it sounds like zombies."

She laughed nervously. "Right, great joke… Seriously, what's going on?"

I sighed. "Look, that's what it sounded like. Maybe I'm wrong; maybe they're wrong, whatever. But cities are already falling; you can check the news. People are on edge. Whether or not it really is zombies, there definitely is some disease that has the potential to kill us if we stick around large groups of people. Bodily fluids spread it, so if we keep away from other people, we should be safe. Does that make more sense?"

She was silent for a second. "Yeah… yeah, I guess so. Less people always sounds good to me." She shot me a smile. It helped a bit. "So where to anyway? Are we gonna go hike on Sugarloaf Mountain, or…"

"Actually, it's not as much of a hike as a… journey on foot, for lack of a better term. Remember how I mentioned less people? We're gonna ditch the car out by the Monocacy, meet up with a few friends, and then get moving on foot. There are lots of people on the highway, not to mention traffic that will slow us down."

"Yeah, but won't your 'friends' count as people? What it one of them is sick? Won't they just slow us down?" I could hear the concern in her voice.

"Well, I can't just leave them to die. Besides, it'll only be a few, even if everyone comes." I could tell she was getting a bit scared now. I reached over and held out my hand. "Hey. Sharon. It'll be ok. Don't worry. I would give my life to protect you."

She sat for a second, almost like she was holding her breath, and then sighed. "That's what I'm afraid of."

* * *

At this point, we could tell 270 was going to essentially be one long traffic jam. The majority of the cars weren't moving at all. I could feel the fear, a thick, unstable energy in the air. It was like someone was drowning the world in amphetamines. Everyone had one thing on their mind: getting as far away as possible. Thankfully, we didn't have very far to go. By the time we had to bring the car to a full stop, we were almost to the river. Instead of staying in line, we pulled over and got out to hoof it the rest of the way to the rendezvous point.

As we got out of the car, I reached into the glove compartment to grab several roadmaps, as well as some maps I had printed out from Google that showed directions to some of the places I had visited around recently. I also opened up the trunk and got my medical kit I kept for emergencies. I checked inside it before putting it in my backpack. I still had a pretty good supply of antiseptic wipes, bandages, gauze, antibiotics and ointments, as well as some medical scissors, a pair of tweezers, and some spare cloth for making slings. Once I had zipped up my backpack, we started walking.

When we finally got there, I was glad to see that both my brother Miguel and my friend Maxwell were there. Miguel's friend Rachel was also there. I sped up a bit, trying to get to them quickly so we could start moving away from the city. As I approached I called out to them. "Have either of you seen Julia?"

They turned to look at me, Maxwell shaking his head. "Sorry, she hasn't shown up. I just got here and found Miguel, and we haven't really seen anyone else since." I nodded slowly, trying to process everything.

"Well she's the only one missing… I guess we'll just have to hope she's ok. Let's get moving." I started walking, but Miguel stopped me.

"Dude, what's going on? Why did you send that text? Where are we going?" I could see he was confused. Despite being the younger brother, he had often been more confident than I was. I put my hand on his shoulder, tried my best to reassure him.

"I barely know either. I just got an e-mail from work, and I think that the city isn't the best place to be right now. So we're going on a, I don't know, a hike. Come on, it'll be an adventure, like the ones we used to read about, or in the stories mom told us." I smiled at him, but I could tell it wasn't doing much to help. I just turned around and started walking, motioning for the others to follow.

I could hear Miguel trying to get my attention. "That doesn't make any sense! Just come back here and tell us what's happening!" I just kept walking.

"Trust me, guys!" Under my breath, I added, "And pray that you don't see what I'm running from."

* * *

We tried our best to keep away from other people while still having access to enough landmarks to tell where we were going. That meant keeping the highway in sight, but staying pretty well away from it. It was still hard with all the smaller roads coming off of it, but we managed to keep away from other groups for the most part. That is, until I almost got shot in the face.

We were walking through the forest when I walked around a tree and saw the business end of a pistol in front of my face. I probably would have died a second later if I hadn't called out the name of the person holding it. "Julia, it's me! Don't shoot!"

She hesitated, and then lowered the gun. As she did, I saw recognition spread across her face. "Keith?" She said in her heavy Belgian accent. "Oh god, I almost shot you… I'm so sorry; I'm just so on edge! It's so good to see you!"

I nodded. "It's good to see you too; when I got to the rendezvous point and you weren't there, I feared the worst…" I noticed the people standing behind her. There was an African American woman and a Hispanic man, as well as a small Pitbull Terrier who seemed to be following them. "Introductions?"

She nodded and turned halfway towards her group. "This is my sister Bella, my friend Kevin, and his dog, Po." She said, pointing out each member of the group. Bella and Kevin waved, and Po barked at us.

"You brought a dog?" I said incredulously. "Doesn't that seem like a bit of a risky choice, given the situation?"

"Hey! He's a good dog, and we couldn't just leave him behind!" She looked towards my group. "What about you guys?"

"Oh yeah… you remember Maxwell from anime club… and this is my brother Miguel, his friend Rachel, and Sharon." The members of our two groups greeted each other. I turned back to Julia. "We were going to meet up with another group from Montgomery County. You guys wanna come? We'll probably do much better if we can pool our resources."

She nodded. "Of course. The more the better, right? I brought lots of toilet paper!"

I paused for a second. "Toilet paper? Seriously?"

She gave me a very serious look. "Hey, we all use it! What are we supposed to do if we run out?"

* * *

We kept walking, making our way through the forest and farmland. It was fairly easy to keep the road in sight without being seen ourselves. Most of the people on the highway were only focused on where they were going. In general, when people focus, it becomes very easy for them to miss things right in front of them.

Sharon, Maxwell and I took the lead, with Kevin, Bella and Julia in the back and Miguel, Rachel and Po in the middle. We were able to cover a surprising amount of ground, and soon the city was several miles behind us.

As we got closer to Montgomery County, the terrain become much more rough. We ended up climbing a lot of hills, but despite this we were still moving pretty quickly. I ended up using my makeshift spear as a walking stick to help me move along, and some of the others picked up fallen branches for the same purpose.

As we reached the top of one of these hills, we stopped to take a breather. Suddenly, came over and tapped my shoulder. "Keith… what's happening?" I was confused for a second, but then she pointed to the highway and I saw what she meant. The glow of the highway cast a warm light across her horrified face.

The highway looked like it was burning. It was hard to tell exactly what was happening from where we were, but it seemed like there were fires all along the road. We could just make out the people who had abandoned their cars, running about. I wasn't sure, but I thought I could make out screams carried on the wind.

Sharon tried to catch her breath. "Keith… what's going on? Why is this happening?"

I looked over at her. I tried my best to look calm, but it was almost impossible under the circumstances. I probably looked like I was trying to swallow a brick. "I don't know. I don't know what's going on. But I know I'm going to do everything in my power to keep us safe, ok?" She nodded. I tried my best to smile, and then I tightened my grip on the spear in my hands. "Come on. We have a lot of ground to cover."

* * *

Night had fallen by the time we got to the weigh station. The stars were obscured by a layer of clouds and, in many places, smoke. The darkness made it even easier to use the trees for cover as we slowly moved closer to the road.

Maxwell spotted an abandoned truck that we were able to fit behind while we waited for the other group. There were people running all over the place on the road, but thankfully few of them decided to move towards the trucks. There were wrecked cars everywhere, and most of the ones that weren't broken down had been abandoned. People were rushing in between the cars like water flowing between rocks. Most of them were just running away, groups or individuals trying their best to keep it together and survive. There were a few clusters, almost clots, of people who weren't running. Some people were taking advantage of the chaos, trying to steal things from the cars or the people between the cars. Most of them were shouting, to each other, at each other, at other groups, to no one in particular.

After about ten minutes, Sharon tapped my shoulder. "Keith, we need to leave soon. The others are getting restless, and I really don't blame them. If we wait around much longer then we're practically asking to be spotted. Let's just leave while we can." I could see the desperation in her eyes; she was practically pleading with me.

I tore myself away from her beautiful green eyes to look out at the hellish red flames before me. I couldn't leave Pablo behind in that. But I couldn't let us become trapped in it either. Finally, I nodded. "Fine. In about five minutes we'll-" I stopped as I saw Pablo running towards us, along with a thin girl of about the same age. Seeing this, I spoke up a bit. "Never mind, I see him. Be ready to leave in about half a minute."

I moved to the edge of the group and urged Pablo to join the rest of the group. Once he was fairly close I risked calling out to him softly. "Who's your friend?" They both seemed fairly well prepared; he had a sub-machine gun in his hands and a shotgun strapped to his backpack, which looked to be pretty full from what I could see. The woman had a machete in hand and a shotgun on her backpack as well.

"Oh yeah, you haven't met her yet! This is my girlfriend, Maria." It looked like everyone was about ready to get moving.

"Yeah, I would start official introductions, but we were just about to make a run for it. That highway is looking pretty nasty, yeah?" I motioned to the still-burning road and adjusted my backpack a bit.

He nodded. "True. Where are we going?"

I started away from our place behind the truck, making sure that everyone was sticking together as we moved into the woods. "At the moment? Away from here. We'll figure out specifics later."

* * *

We kept going for about a mile before it seemed safe to stop. We only had to cross one road; beyond that, it was mostly farmland and forest. We decided to set up camp at the first suitable spot we came to; unfortunately we didn't have much of a camp to set up.

"So let me get this straight. Not a single one of you thought to bring a sleeping bag or a tent?!" Sharon was irate, speaking louder than was probably safe given the circumstances.

"Look, you didn't have the sense to bring one either!" Miguel shot back. "It's your fault as much as ours." He took off his backpack and walked off a short way. "I don't know about you guys, but I can just use my backpack as a pillow. See you all in the morning."

I sighed and tried to help bring some semblance of order to the group. "Normally I'd just say that's Miguel being Miguel, but really it's probably the most any of us can do. I say everyone should try and get some sleep so that we can keep going tomorrow. I'll take first watch, and I'll wake up someone in a few hours for the next one. Agreed?"

Most of them nodded, although Pablo spoke up. "I'll stay with you. If you fall asleep out there, we're all screwed." I nodded, and everyone else started settling down. As they did, we moved to the edges of the group and got in place for sentry duty.

After about ten minutes, I was bored out of my skull. ADHD and staring into the same dark, boring stretch of forest do not mix well. I moved over so I could talk to Pablo.

"I feel so much sympathy for every guard I've ever killed in a video game. Ever. This is so. Damn. Boring."

Pablo grinned and shook his head. "Seriously?"

"Pretty much. It takes attention I don't have, man." I settled down a bit and sighed. We sat there for a moment, staring out into the dark. I thought I could see smoke at some points, or perhaps the flicker of flames on the horizon, but I couldn't be sure.

Eventually Pablo spoke up. "It's weird how even with all this going on, we still hang on to video games and stuff like that."

I nodded. "Yeah, it is… the media has become so important in our daily lives. And zombies have become a big part of the media. Remember all those jokes about preparing for when the zombies come? All those times we talked about what we would do when it happened, just for fun? 'Hypothetically'?" I paused for a bit. "It kind of feels like… do you think we brought this on with obsession? We think about zombies so much… do you think that has something to do with all this?"

Pablo turned to look at me directly. "Dude. You're insane." He laughed a bit as I grumbled at him. "I don't think that has anything to do with this. Most likely, it was just some stupid mistake. Just knowing about zombies doesn't make them exist."

I nodded some more. "I know, I know." Another pause. "It seems like in all the movies and stuff that have zombies, nobody has ever heard of one. We seem to know a lot about them… at least this way we know we're not in some nerd's TV show or a book or something." We both laughed for a bit at that one. We talked for a bit more, passing the time. Nothing came for us. Yet I was still a little bit afraid of the dark, especially now that I knew there really was something out there to get me. Eventually we decided that our watch had ended, and we woke up Julia and Bella for the next shift. Once they were in place, I went over to lie down next to Sharon. Despite the fear taking root inside me and the discomfort from the dirt I was lying on, I felt safe with her, and I was so exhausted that I fell asleep in the space of a few minutes.


	2. Where Are You

Chapter 2

Where Are You

The next morning I awoke to find some of the group already awake and busy. I turned to wake up Sharon, but I knew she probably wouldn't be up until the last possible second, no matter what we did, so I went over to say good morning to the others.

Around 7 or 8, I tried to get everyone into a single group so we could figure out what we were going to do next. I also tried to figure out our inventory. "Ok, I have some extra shotguns and rifles. If anyone needs them, speak up now, but we have limited ammo and we need to use them only when we don't have much of a choice. Only take one if you're certain you're going to need it. Ok?"

Maxwell raised his hand. "Can I have one of each?"

I turned and gave him a mock-glare, then handed the guns over. "Anyone else? Bella, Kevin, you guys aren't armed, why don't you take some?" They both nodded. I gave the shotgun to Bella and the rifle to Kevin. Then I handed them all some bullets.

"Ok, who else has a gun already?" Pablo laid out his shotgun, his SMG, and dug 2 pistols out of his backpack. Maria took out her shotgun and laid it next to his. Julia held up her pistol, making sure the safety was on. "I think everyone has ammo. What about food? I have some granola bars and about… 1000 ml of water. Anyone else?"

Sharon held up her bag. "I have Mountain Dew! I love the stuff, but I'm also willing to share, if I need to…"

Pablo took out some chips and a pretty large water bottle. "I picked these up on my way out of Montgomery County. Maria got some stuff too."

Julia spoke up next. "I have… around 10 bars of chocolate. Maybe more." A lot of people smiled at that.

I looked around the group. That seemed to be it, so I made a mental note to grab more food whenever possible. "Ok, how about tools? I have a first aid kit and some flint for starting fires, but that's about it…"

Sharon held up her axe, and Maria took out her machete. Maxwell took out his 3DS and said, "Does this count?" I gave him another fake glare and kept moving my gaze around the camp. The only others with tools were Miguel and Rachel; they had both brought knives. Miguel had brought a practical hunting knife, while Rachel had a more ornate blade, almost like a dagger. Miguel had also brought a slingshot.

I took a note of all this as well, and then decided to move on. "Ok, so what should our next move be? My Uncle has a farm over in Virginia, so I was thinking we could go there. It's pretty close to the Appalachian Trail, and it would only take us about three days to get there… does anyone else have a suggestion? Or should we just go with that?" Everyone seemed to agree with going to the farm. I was a bit surprised at that, but just went along with it.

I took a bit to process everything. While I did, Miguel got up and said, "I'm going to get my stuff together. Let me know when we're gonna get going." Everyone else seemed to agree with him, so we all got up to get our stuff together.

As they got ready, I went over to the side of the camp and got out my phone. I sent a quick text to some of my friends from out of state:

**Gathered group, heading for a farm on Leeds Manor Rd, Delaplane, VA 20144. Should arrive in around 3 days. **

Once I had sent it, I headed back and put on my backpack. Everyone else was ready, so we headed out for the Appalachian Trail.

* * *

As we walked, the area stayed pretty much the same. The land was pretty rural, dotted with farms and one or two roads. Unfortunately, the longer we went, the more roads we had to cross. For the most part, we just stayed under cover as long as we could, and then crossed the road when we felt it was safe.

We had done this enough that it became routine before the world decided to throw us a curveball. We were about to cross a road when Rachel pointed something out.

"Guys, there's someone down there. They look pretty lost, also maybe like they're wounded. Should we check it out, or is it too risky?" We all came over to see what she was talking about.

Pablo approached me. "What do you think? I could head down there with you, just in case."

I nodded. "Yeah. That sounds like a good idea." He motioned for the others to stay back, and we made our way downhill to the side of the road.

From afar, it was hard to tell if the figure was a walker or a normal person. We didn't want to accidentally shoot someone who was still alive, so we tried to get as close in as safely possible.

Once we were about 20 feet away, we were pretty sure whoever it was wasn't alive anymore. We could smell the stench of decay coming off it in waves, and its skin was pale and torn like tissue paper. I heard Pablo turn off the safeties on both his pistols. "Hey! Anyone alive over there?"

We got a definitive answer, but it wasn't composed of words. The zombie growled and shuffled towards us. For a horrifying moment I felt the urge to run, because I knew that it was really there, it was coming for me. Then I heard a bang and a crimson dot appeared on its forehead.

I numbly nodded my thanks to Pablo, and we walked back towards the group. Once we got there, I had finally oriented myself enough to speak up. "We need to move. Gunshots can be heard from pretty far away, so it's probably not a good idea to stick around."

* * *

We kept walking for the rest of the day, and thankfully nothing else really happened. Despite the grim circumstances, it was kind of nice to explore and see new places. We made pretty good time following the maps I brought.

It was getting darker by the time we got to the trail. Maxwell pointed out that we should probably find shelter for the night. I agreed and we decided to check out one of the houses nearby. I decided to take Pablo, Julia, and Bella along with me, seeing as they all had short-range guns. I had the others stay back and cover us from the windows with rifles.

We moved into the nearest house, which looked deserted. We made sure to check our corners, coming in the front door to find two hallways and a flight of stairs. Pablo and I took the upper floor, while Julia and her sister searched the ground floor.

Once we got upstairs, we found two bedrooms and a bathroom. There were no people as far as we could see, and not many supplies to take with us. There weren't any walkers either. It seemed to be just about deserted. Then we heard Julia calling up the stairs to us.

We came down to find her and Bella standing next to a cellar door. Bella moved to open it, while Pablo, Julia and I covered her.

The door opened with a long, high-pitched creak. A small set of steps lead down into the darkness. Julia was closest, so she went in first, and I followed while Pablo stayed behind with Bella to cover the entrance.

I kept my shotgun raised as my eyes adjusted to the darkness. That was when we saw the two figures that were down there with us. I held my shotgun a bit more tightly as they came closer, and I could tell Julia was about to shoot.

That's when one of them spoke up. "Don't shoot! We're living!" The man stepped toward what little light there was and held up his hand. I slowly lowered the gun, and Julia did the same. We introduced ourselves as well, and then the man followed suit. "My name is Garth, and this is my wife, Tara. We were living here when things started to go south, so we decided it would be best to hide out in the cellar. Most of our food is down here, so…"

I nodded. "Look, I know this is asking a lot, but can we sleep here tonight? We would feel a lot better with some shelter, and we could use some food too."

Garth thought about it for a bit. We waited patiently, although it was hard not to fidget. The sun was getting closer and closer to the horizon. Finally, he nodded. "Fine. But only one night, and if anything goes wrong you keep the cellar door closed, understand? I don't want to take any risks."

It seemed pretty reasonable, so I agreed to his terms. We went back up the steps and carefully closed the door behind us, then went back outside to join the rest of the group. Julia and I quickly explained the situation to the rest of the group. We agreed to stay in the bedrooms on the upper floor, men in one and women in the other. Soon darkness came, and we set watches again, one for each room we were using. The doors were locked, and we kept the cellar door closed.

* * *

Late into the night, I felt someone shaking me awake. I was Maxwell; he put a finger to his lips, the gestured for me to follow him over to the window. Once there, he pointed outside the window, handing me his rifle and indicating the scope attached to it.

I looked out the window. There was a solitary figure roaming the field beyond. I looked through the scope, although even without it I was fairly certain what it was. I saw its face in the moonlight, half-rotten, covered in pustules and papules. I turned to Maxwell.

"I didn't want to shoot it, because it will attract others, but I'm not sure if we can just leave it. What if it comes closer?" He whispered.

I sat and thought for a second. "We can't really help it. Besides, the door is locked. I don't think one walker could break in on it's own." I whispered back. "I think I can take over now. I'll make sure it doesn't get any closer; you make sure to get some sleep." He seemed hesitant, but nodded. He went off to rest. I sat and watched the walker until it roamed out of sight. I kept watching, until eventually I found myself watching the sunrise. I couldn't bring myself to sleep. Despite how well I had slept the last night, for some reason I was scared of what I would find when I closed my eyes.

* * *

Once people started waking up, we headed downstairs to get ready to take the trail the rest of the way to the farm. Julia, Bella, Pablo and I went down into the cellar to tell Garth and Tara.

"Would you like to come with us?" Pablo offered.

They considered this, but then looked to each other and shook their heads. "It will probably be safest if we stay here. We wish you luck though. And you can take some potatoes, too. We don't have much to spare, but…" Tara paused with a sigh. "At a time like this, we all need as much help as we can get."

We all nodded and thanked them, wishing them well as we went back up to join the others. Within the hour, we had gotten our supplies together and started hiking up the trail.

The trail started out very smooth and flat, almost like a sidewalk without pavement. That changed within a few miles, though; soon we found ourselves on slightly more rough terrain, dotted with hills and sections of trail that wound up the mountains and back down again. We saw very few walkers, and when we did they were pretty far away from us, so we moved along without incident. We walked for miles, and soon we were all pretty tired. Thankfully, the trail was also connected to different campsites all over the state, so we caught a break every once and a while searching them.

Around noon, we came to one that seemed particularly interesting. The fire was still going, and there was what looked like an oddly shaped log in the pit. As we got closer, we realized it was a charred corpse, most likely a zombie that had been caught in the fire as it shambled about the camp. We heard shuffling around us and raised our weapons.

Walkers started pouring out of the tents around us. I readied my shotgun and yelled for everyone to stay together. Next to me, Sharon raised her axe, and Pablo and Maria took aim at the undead nearest to them.

Within seconds the zombies were uncomfortably close, and I pulled the trigger. A former camper with a backpack caught around its leg fell to the ground, half it's head shattered from the shot. Pablo let loose with his SMG, tearing through the five approaching him. Maria took out a sixth with a well-placed shot.

I reloaded and fired on another one as I glanced to the other side. I could see Julia in front of Kevin, shooting down any walkers that dared to get close to him with her pistol. He was taking aim behind her, but between her and Bella, who was watching their flank, he probably could have just stood there and remained safe.

Miguel and Rachel hung back and covered the rear. The zombies were almost exclusively coming from the tents directly ahead of us, but they didn't have any long-range weapons except for Miguel's slingshot, so it seemed like the best place for them to be.

I kept firing into the mass of rotting flesh ahead of us. The kickback from the shotgun was more than a little forceful, but I had built up a surprising amount of muscle working in the hospital, lifting patients and boxes of supplies. They were getting a little close to us, but thankfully that meant I rarely missed. We kept firing, and then suddenly it was over.

I stood breathless among my friends and the fallen corpses. I finally lowered the shotgun, but kept it ready in case there were any more. "We should check this camp quickly; there may be more soon. Keep an eye out for any we missed. We should meet up here in about five minutes. Also, everyone grab a sleeping bag. They should be useful." Most of them nodded and moved off towards the tents.

Julia came up to me with a worried look on her face. "We can't find Po; he must have run off during the fight. Kevin, Bella and I are going to go look for him."

I nodded. "Ok, but be back here soon, ok? I may come help you look in a bit if I can." She nodded back to me, and we went our separate ways.

The adrenaline was starting to work its way out of my system, and I was starting to shake. I went over to Sharon, and she held out her hand. I took it as we walked over to one of the tents. It felt so good to have her with me, to feel her warm skin against mine. For just a moment, things felt as they once had, like everything was going to be ok. Like I was finally warm, and safe, and loved.

We entered a medium-sized tent and started searching. I started looking through a bag in the corner, while Sharon went straight for a sleeping bag in the center. We unzipped our respective bags, and then I heard her scream.

I turned around.

There was a walker halfway out of the sleeping bag now.

It had its arms around her and its jaws latched around her neck.

I raised my shotgun and pulled the trigger. Then I reloaded and fired again. And again. I knew it was too late, though. I could already smell her sweet scent disappearing, being replaced by the stench of decay. On some level I was aware of the people coming into the tent, but I had no idea who, and I really didn't care. I ran over to her as fast as I could. Her eyes were wide and blank, and though I could see that beautiful shade of green that I loved so dearly, the light in them that I loved even more was fast receding. "NO! Sharon, get up! I need you; I need you to get up! SHARON!" I grabbed my medical kit out of my backpack and took out some gauze and antiseptic. I would have gotten gloves too, but at the moment I didn't really care about standard precautions. I poured some antiseptic on the gauze and pressed it tightly against her neck. She normally would have recoiled from the pain, but instead she just lay there, completely silent. She was bleeding out way too quickly, but I still had to try, I had to do something. She couldn't die, not like this.

"Sharon, my love, look at me. Look at me. It's going to be ok. It's going to be ok. I need it to be ok. Your freshman is here. I'm going to take care of you, like you took care of me, just hang in there for me. I need you to hang in there, because I can't make it without you, I don't ever want to live in a world without you in it!" I heard her make a slight sound, but I couldn't tell if she was acknowledging my presence or just trying to breath. Either way, she was failing. I could feel tears flowing down my cheeks. I bound the gauze in place, then took off my glasses so they wouldn't slip and started CPR, trying to get her to breath again.

Giving breaths isn't supposed to be like a kiss. Ideally, you would have a barrier device between your mouth and theirs to prevent infection. It is by no means supposed to be an intimate action. But neither is it supposed to be something you do on a loved on. This was an exception. As I tried to force air into her lungs, I sent with it all the love I had in my body. So many clichéd stories talked about the healing power of love. I prayed with all my heart that just once, the cliché would be true. Then I started a round of 30 compressions, trying to push hard and get her heart to beat, I needed to feel it beat against mine again. Once I was done the compressions, I started over again.

I was supposed to be counting how many cycles I did. But I couldn't, all I could focus on was her, the feel of her skin, the color of her eyes staring blankly out at me. I had no idea how many cycles I did. All I knew was eventually I couldn't keep going. Only when I literally couldn't move my arms anymore did I lie down next to her and break. The woman I loved was gone, and I didn't know where she was.

Eventually I realized Pablo over me, talking to me. "Dude, we need to get going. This place is going to be crawling with walkers soon. We need to get our stuff together and leave, now!" I stared as blankly at him as Sharon had stared at me. Then I got up and went outside. I silently pulled the charred corpse out of the fire pit as the others watched me. Once it was out, I went back into the tent and started dragging Sharon out of the tent.

About halfway to the pit, she moved. I almost dared to hope that it was still her, that the woman I loved was still there. But I looked into her eyes, and the light was gone entirely this time. But still her arms twitched, and her jaw tightened and relaxed rhythmically. I gently laid her down and took out my shotgun, and held it to her forehead with one hand. I knew what would happen, but I didn't care anymore. I pulled the trigger.

I knew the gun would be knocked out of my hand by the kickback. I knew the bullet would shatter through that beautiful face that I so loved to look upon. And the whole time I had known her, I had known. I had known that we could never have belonged to each other, seen that future that I longed for above all else.

I numbly dragged her the rest of the way to the fire pit. Some may have considered it disrespectful, but I considered funeral pyres to be honorable, and we had no time to bury her. The body caught fire quickly, and I found it somehow fitting that such a bright soul leave this world in flame as opposed to rotting in the dark underground.

We left the camp soon after. We had no choice; walkers were already coming in closer, and three had reached the camp by the time we left. We practically ran down the trail, trying to get away from the nightmare. I didn't think, I just kept moving. As night fell, we found another camp on the side of the trail. This one had an office, and we decided to stay there for the night. There were no walkers inside, yet I couldn't feel safe, even as I drifted off from exhaustion.


	3. On My Knees

Chapter 3

On My Knees

The next morning I woke up feeling completely empty. Despite the sleep I had just gotten, I felt hollow and weak inside. The air around me was empty without her breath, silent without the sound of her laughter.

I don't know how I ever got out of that damn sleeping bag. Eventually I did, though, and I walked across the wooden floor to join the others. My surrounding seemed completely unfamiliar to me. I couldn't remember anything from the last night, couldn't remember anything beyond that last look in her eyes as the light faded.

The rest of the group had woken up a while ago, and most of them were now munching on a breakfast of chips, cookies and sodas looted from the vending machines. Children the world over would have dreamed of such a situation, and yet we ate the junk food out of need, not want.

Pablo and Julie came over and rested their hands on my shoulders like concerned parents. How long had it been since I last heard from my parents? How long since this whole thing started? How long since Sharon had last held me? Each period seemed longer than the last.

I took comfort from the contact. It was like cool water on a burn. It soothed me, but didn't take all the pain away. And there was an underscore of even more pain; I needed more contact, I needed her. I need to feel her hand in mine, my empty hand.

Still, they helped me get back on my feet. We were back on they trail by mid-morning. The terrain was still about the same, in that it was changing almost constantly. The air was clear up in the mountains, although the sky was overcast. We hiked on as the clouds swirled above us.

Nothing really happened, yet it would have probably been better if disaster had struck. In the relative silence on the trail, I was left alone with my thoughts. My thoughts, which were determined to drive me insane. The longing, the despair, the rage. So I escaped in the company of my friends.

I talked with them all day to keep the ghosts and demons away. I talked to Miguel like we used to, half in complete sentences and half in references to our favorite movies. I talked with Pablo about the video games we used to play, remembering all the good times. I talked to Julia about Hollywood Undead and the other bands we listened to, laughing about the irony of the band's name. I talked with Maxwell about Deltora Quest and the other anime we used to watch. We talked all about the world we used to have, but instead of mourning it, we talked about it like it was still here. And for just a day, it was. And for that day, I was able to forget.

We walked and talked, and the sun sank low on the horizon. As it did, we came to a part of the trail that ran up near a road. We tried our best to stay out of sight, but of course trouble found us anyway.

* * *

We were making our way through the forest when we saw the pickup truck. It was parked, and there were 4 guys standing around it. Most of them were in camo hunting gear, and they all had rifles in their hands. Up ahead were some small houses and a few more cars, but they didn't look like the belonged to the guys in camo. There was also a small pond, and the trail wound around it before heading up a nearby hill.

They seemed somewhat threatening, but also resourceful. We finally decided to try and see if they would let us pass without bullets in our heads. Hopefully they would be willing to join us. But we were all ready for a fight, just in case. We walked over as a group, and Kevin called out to them.

As soon as we made our presence known, they turned toward us, guns raised. I held up one hand, trying my best to seem calm and confident. "Whoa! Hold up. We just wanted to talk. We're on our way to find shelter; you look like you guys can handle yourselves. Why don't you come along with us?" I was trying my best to get to the point, but it wasn't a point they wanted to hear.

"Why?" One said. "Because you can't make it on your own? Sure looks like that to me."

Despite his harsh tone, I was able to take the fact that we were still alive as a good sign. "We made it this far. We were just thinking that more people-"

Another one cut me off. "Why don't you just give those guns to us?" He held out his hand as though he expected me to give him my shotgun. "You can just run along after. We sure know how to handle them better anyways."

To accentuate his point, some of his friends cocked their rifles and started taking aim. I cleared my throat, which was the signal we had agreed upon. After less than a seconds wait, we opened fire and ran.

Most of the initial shots missed. Maxwell managed to hit one in the arm. Another was caught in the stomach by fire from Pablo's sub-machine gun. Bella was managed to hit one in the head with a shotgun round, taking him out entirely. Even as their wounded fell, we turned towards the houses and ran.

They weren't entirely caught off-guard, though. It was only a couple of seconds before they were chasing after us. We took cover behind some cars about halfway to the houses. Pablo and Kevin laid down cover fire while the rest of us caught our breath and got ready to run the rest of the way to the nearest house.

Bullets whizzed and sparked around us. At one point Maria let out a yelp. I called out to Pablo, but he was too busy to respond. After a few seconds, I risked sprinting over to the car they were behind.

Maria was on the ground. I let off a shot in the direction of our pursuers before kneeling down to check on her. She turned over; she hadn't been hit, she was just laying low. I tapped Pablo on the shoulder, and he nodded. After a few more shots, Maria and I turned to run, and a few after that he followed, grabbing Maria's hand as he went.

Adrenaline burning through our veins, we made it to the house. Thankfully the door had been left ajar during the chaos, so we were able to get in without getting shot.

We ushered the rest of the group in. None of them seemed hurt, except for Maxwell. He had some blood on his forehead, but he was still on his feet and said he was alright, so I trusted his judgment. I told him to go upstairs with Miguel, Rachel and Kevin to keep us covered from on high. The rest of us moved towards the few windows and doors to fend off the attackers.

I peeked out the window and saw that they were already getting uncomfortably close to our position. I readied my shotgun and tried to shoot one through the window I was next to. Unfortunately I missed, and another of the attackers got off a shot that clipped my shoulder. It didn't hit anything important, just whipped through my shirt and a bit of skin. But it still burned enough to make me cry out and drop back down behind the windowsill.

The others kept the firefight going while I tried to assess the condition of my arm. I knew it was going to be ok, but I wasn't sure how exactly to treat it. As I was thinking, I noticed a framed painting on the wall. The glass showed a slight reflection of the assailants outside. That gave me an idea.

I got my companions attention and pointed to the painting, trying my hardest to make note of the reflections. Most of them seemed to understand. We could see that the attackers were moving up, so we had to work quickly.

As one, we got up from behind cover and shot at the attackers based on where they had been in the mirror. This time, several of us scored hits on them, and 2 of the 3 remaining fell to the ground. The final attacker slowed his pace, practically back-treading and attempting to dodge behind a nearby car. However, as he did this we heard a bang from above us and a fountain of blood and opaque fluid blossomed from his forehead.

Shaking, I sank to the floor. I realized that this was the first time I had ever shot at another, living human. My second thought was of the last unloving being I had put to rest. My arms felt heavy, and yet full of nervous energy. I felt tears welling up in my eyes, and I wanted to strike out at the walkers, the people who had attacked us, at myself.

But instead of lashing out, I got up. Like I knew I had to.

* * *

We all gathered in the upstairs bedroom to decide what to do.

"Those shots we fired are going to bring a ton of walkers down on our heads any minute. What the hell are we gonna do?!" Julie asked.

Pablo was the first to respond. "At the moment, there's not much we can do. We needed to fire off those shots if we wanted to stay alive. And if we want to keep up that streak, we need a place to stay the night."

Miguel shook his head. "We can't stay here. We'll be like sitting ducks. Besides, do you really want to spend the night defending a house with a bunch of broken windows for zombies to crawl through?"

I nodded at this. "I'm with Miguel. I say we high-tail it at least a mile or two, then set up a camp so that we can get some rest."

Maria and the others nodded. Pablo looked at her, then back at the rest of us. Finally, he nodded. "Fine. Let's move."

We walked out into the night, moving as quickly as we could. It was getting harder and harder to see. Eventually people started tripping over rocks and fallen branches, so we decided to stop for the night. Hoping we had covered a safe amount of distance, we blindly tried to set up our sleeping bags. Once the first watch was set, most of us were able to get to sleep. But I couldn't help remembering how Sharon had been afraid of the dark. And how it seemed to choke me in her absence.

* * *

The next morning I awoke to find the world warm and dry. I searched my pack for the water bottle and found it almost empty. Julie was passing around some of her chocolate to the others, and as I walked over I offered to split my last granola bar with anyone who wanted some.

The general mood seemed cheery enough. But there was an elephant in the metaphorical room. We all knew that our supplies probably wouldn't last us another day. As we walked along the trail, our feet were heavy, and the toll the past few days had taken started to show. The heat was oppressive, trying to drag us down and finish us off.

Thankfully, that was about when I started to recognize my surroundings. Eventually we came to an area that split off from the rest of the trail. A huge grin spread across my face, and as heavy as my legs were, they found new strength as Miguel and I lead the group along the side trail.

Soon we reached an overlook where we could see the farm. There were two barns, each about 20 feet tall. There was also the farmhouse, which had 2 floors and was made of stone and wood. There were 4 stone pillars that used to support a porch, but now stood on their own about 10 feet from the house. The gate and fence that ran across the entrance to the dirt driveway were still intact, but the truck my uncle drove was missing. I could also just make out the rolling hills and forests beyond, but that didn't catch my interest as much as the final detail in the picture before me.

In the window of the farmhouse, I could just barely see the silhouette of a young woman. I motioned for the others to wait while I took out my rifle and looked through the scope. I smiled when I saw who it was.

I put my rifle back as quickly as I could and started to run down the hill. Some of the others called out after me, but they followed me down the slope. I ran up the driveway and the half-buried stone step to the farmhouse and opened the door. "Alex, you made it!"

Her dark hair whipped about as she turned towards the door in surprise. At first her expression was one of shock, but then she smiled. "I can see that someone missed me."

I grinned and laughed a bit. "Well I'm just glad you aren't dead! How on earth did you get here alone?"

She shrugged. "Long story. Who're they?" I turned to introduce the rest of the group.

"So how did you get in?" I asked. "See any sign of my uncle?"

She shook her head. "No, sorry. The place was empty and unlocked when I came. Looks like he left in a hurry."

I nodded, sobering up a bit. Still, it was beyond nice to be back in a safe, familiar place. We searched for anything my uncle had left behind, and we weren't disappointed. The place was just as I remembered it. There was a combined living room/dining room/kitchen, with a wall in between the kitchen and living room areas. Off to the side were the stairs leading to the basement and 2 bedrooms.

Up on the wall was the antique wooden bow and arrows Uncle Drew had used for decoration. We also found 2 more modern bows, along with steel arrows. We decided to place these in a pile on one of the couches to distribute later. We found some useful books on the bookshelf as well, mostly ones on nature and wildlife that we could use if we had to forage or anything. Though the most useful items we found were in the kitchen. We found vegetables from the garden outside, bread and cereal in the pantry, and milk, venison and strawberries in the refrigerator. They were still good because the refrigerator was still running. In fact, the whole house had electricity; it ran on a generator outside, so we had enough power to last at least a few days.

As we searched, we found another surprise. Or rather, she found us.

I was searching with Pablo when I heard a knock on the door. I turned to see my friend Angela standing in the doorway, accompanied by her boyfriend Clayton. They placed their backpacks on the ground as she said, "I got your text!"

I felt another grin coming my way. Despite the sour start, this day was getting better by the second. "Angie! You made it too! Come meet everyone!" It was a bit annoying to do introductions twice in one day, but I just went with it. The sun got lower as we talked and laughed as a group- almost as a family. Eventually we settled in, drawing straws to see who got the bedrooms. I ended up on the floor. But ironically enough, I slept soundly and without nightmares until it was my shift for the watch.


	4. Ebony pt 1

_Note: this story is being co-written, and this is the first chapter by another author. Specifically, this chapter is written by and from the POV of _Bookreader777. _She's a really good writer, and if anyone is looking for more zombie-type stories, they should check her out! Hope you all enjoy, and note that there will be more chapters by other writers in the future. Thanks!_

* * *

I was covered in blood. Rotten, decaying bodies and chopped bits of flesh and limbs surrounded in a circle around me. The sword clutched in my hand was dripping the red liquid to the already soaked grass. The two twin pistols at my waist remained untouched, for I had not needed them for the massacre that had happened only about thirty minutes earlier. Still, the pounding of my heart felt like loud thumps that I was scared the walkers could hear from a mile away. The adrenaline still rushed through my body, but slowly it was beginning to wear off, and the muscles in my arms began to ache faintly from the nonstop hacking and slashing.

It was a miracle I was still alive. A camp that had let me stay for a night had been overrun with walkers, and I had to leave them, or I would have joined them in death. The guilt weighed heavily on me, but I needed to keep moving before more showed up. Finally getting back into action, I bent down and swiped the blood off the sides of my sword using the clothes of a downed walker before pushing it into the sheath strapped to my back.

My life hadn't always been like this. In fact, I used to be a journalist in the nearby city only a few days ago. It's crazy to imagine that life had been so simple, and showered with luxuries everyone took for granted. When all hell broke loose, it had started out like any other day…

"_Ebony Scott! What a pleasure it is to see you this fine morning."_

_I looked up from my computer, my eyes locking on a man with dark brown hair and chocolate colored eyes. He leaned against the doorway of my office, holding a mug of coffee in one hand. A small smile came over me and I lean back in my chair, gazing at him and put my hands behind my head in a relaxed position._

"_Well, where else would I be, Stewart? Today is a weekday, and there is an article I really must get back to," I started in a smooth voice before smiling, "But thank you for that wonderful morning greeting. It isn't everyday someone is so enthusiastic at eight-fifteen in the morning."_

_ Stewart Ryan grinned before walking over, taking a sip from his black mug. "Well, today is very interesting, actually. I don't interrupt your work just every day, Ms. Scott. An interesting issue in the news came up no too long ago. I would suggest looking it up. It might create a great article idea," He pointed out and I raised my eyebrows. As much as I hated to admit it, I needed a brilliant article topic. Lately, they have been slower and not as interesting or entertaining. The minute he said the news was broadcasting an interesting issue, I was already typing in the news site. _

_ Pressing enter, the page loads for a moment before transferring to the website. Stewart looked over my shoulder, both of us shocked by what the headlines said. They were just so unreal. Intrigued and horrified at the same time, I eagerly read the written reports, getting disturbed by the second. What they were saying was that…zombies were becoming a reality. If this was true, then I had a lot of work to do. I needed to inform the public, and what better way than to write an article about it? _

"_Stewart, I'm going to write about this. The moment I'm done, I will leave it in your hands. It is up to you to get this published as fast as possible. I'm leaving the city the moment I finish." I said firmly, and he looked at me as though I was insane. _

"_Ebony, don't you think you are overreacting a little bit? I'm sure there is some logical explanation for all of this." He said and I frown, glancing over at him._

"_I'm not making up my mind. I'm sorry to kick you out, but I need you to go." I said to him and he sighed, running a hand through his hair before striding out._

_ Immediately, I set to work. My fingers flew over the keys of my keyboard, the article soon taking shape. The words poured from me and through my fingers as I typed up a storm. It didn't really take all that long to finish it, though putting it through proofreading extended the time. Soon, my masterpiece was created, and I saved it on a USB drive before getting up and walking out of my office. I head down to Stewart's and simply walk in, putting the small device on his desk. _

"_Make sure this is published." I say to him seriously, not waiting for an answer as I strode out. _

_ The other workers looked at me oddly, but I didn't care. All I knew was that I needed to leave this city, and fast. Surely other people were crowding to get away as well, so I figured moving through the nearby forest would be much more efficient than driving. However, I needed to get to my apartment and pack supplies. Walking out of the building, I head to my black Toyota Corolla and drove to my domain, lucky I didn't receive a speeding ticket on the way. _

_ Parking outside, I quickly get out and ran up to my building, unlocking the door. Right away, I started packing necessities, like food, water and a few extra clothes. Next, I change my attire, since work clothes would not be a very intelligent choice to wear. I pull my dark brown hair out of the ponytail I had it contained in. The slightly wavy hair fell around my shoulders, but I wasted no time changing into jeans, tennis shoes and a simple black t-shirt. I grabbed a light-weight but still warm jacket as well, putting it into the pack with the provisions. The last things I packed up were matches, a flashlight, batteries, rope, medical supplies and a small blanket. _

_ Swinging the backpack onto my shoulders, I'm about to leave when I glance towards my bedroom one more time. Quickly, I returned and pulled a rather big gun case out from under my bed. Inside were two black twin pistols. I reach back under the bed, and pull out holsters for the guns and plenty of ammo for them as well. My father had given them to me, and taught me how to shoot them as well. I wasn't too bad either. Attaching the holsters to my waist, I push the guns in them and packed the ammo into my backpack, then headed out._

_ My next stop was my dad's house. Being an archaeologist, he has come across many artifacts. Some of which are old swords. He was a fan of the medieval time period in history, and refurbished some of the swords he found. Coming outside of it, I park the car in the driveway and walk out. My dad was gone on a vacation out of country, and I could only hope he would stay there and be safe. He didn't have a cell phone, so contacting him was nearly impossible. _

_ Using the key under the welcome mat, I walk into the house and to his study. A sword caught my eye as I walked in. It was thin, a rapier perhaps, and would be lightweight. It hung between two shields. With a deep breath, I walked over and took it from the wall, balancing the hilt in my left hand expertly. Being a fencer gave me a pretty decent knowledge of how to handle swords, and the one I held was well balanced. It was meant to be fast at striking, which was just what I needed. I ran my pinky lightly over the edge of the blade and winced lightly as it shallowly cut me. Good, it was sharp then. Taking the sheath for it, I strapped it to my back, having it poke over my left shoulder at an angle. _

_ It was then that I left, but not before I left a quick note for my father explaining the absence of his sword and the situation the world was in. I took off into the forest, completely unaware of the horrors that would stand before me in the near future. Little did I know that the camp I had stayed in would eventually become a death bed not only for that group, but also the lover of a young man who also had the idea to leave town, but with his friends…_

Day had turned to night, and I had already settled up in a high tree. It was safe from walkers, since they couldn't climb. Exhaustion had taken over my body, and I didn't have much water left, so my mouth was dry. I was still covered in blood; since there was no way in hell I was going to use my precious water supply to clean myself. That wasn't worth it. So I let myself fall asleep, hoping I would be safe for a few hours to regain my energy.

The sharp sound of gunshots jolted me awake and I rested my hands on my pistols, scanning the area. No one was around me. More gunfire echoed among the trees and I cuss, quickly getting down from my safe tree. "Who is firing their guns?! They're going to get themselves killed." I muttered under my breath angrily, starting to jog away from the spot. Sure, the walkers would be more attracted to the location point where the noise was coming from, but that didn't mean they wouldn't pass by. For all I knew, I could be extremely close to whoever was shooting the guns, and I was determined to get the hell out of where I was.

The entire day was spent walking and running off into some random location. I didn't have a specific route or destination. I just needed to get away from the city and maybe find a small town at some point. Thankfully, walkers didn't make an appearance, and once again, I climbed a tree and slept. My strength was beginning to deteriorate. The food had become scarce, and the water was basically gone. It was easy to fall asleep now, since it took me away from my parched mouth and aching, near empty stomach.

As I awoke the next day, a sharp pang of hunger hit my stomach, and I winced. I pull the bag from my back and took out the last granola bar. I unwrapped the bar and ate it slowly, despite the fact that I wanted to eat it much more ravenously. Once finished, I placed the wrapper inside my bag and took out my water bottle and took the smallest of swigs. It was just enough to wet my sandpaper like mouth, though not nearly enough to quench my thirst.

After, I hopped down from the tree, stumbling weakly as I hit the ground with my feet, and rested my hand on the tree trunk to steady myself. Once I was oriented, I took off walking once again. By now, the blood that still covered me was a brown color. However, I hardly cared at the moment. All I could think about was water and food. I barely had enough energy to run as it was. So, I walked through the forest all day. The sun started to sink in the horizon, and I still hadn't found a water source or any food. Just as the sun was about halfway down, the sound of growling and moans caught my attention. Wearily, I look over my shoulder and pale. A group of walkers was right behind me. How did I not hear them until now?

Unsheathing my sword, I decapitate the closest one, and kill about three others before the adrenaline kicked in. Already, blood had sprayed onto me once again from the injuries I had inflicted upon the now dead walker. The adrenaline allowed my body to feel as though it had the energy to run, so I dashed and weaved between the trees, running from the chasing walkers.

Suddenly, I burst out of the forest and came to a clear surrounding with a farmhouse in the distance…and the lights were on. Hope surged through me, but already the adrenaline had begun to wear off, and I was hit with fatigue. Once again, the moaning could be heard behind me, and I push forward, soon turning around and waited. I couldn't bring all these walkers here to the people at this farmhouse. I was determined to keep them safe, even though I was physically weakened as of now.

The first of the group made their appearance, and I slashed my sword in fine, accurate arcs, spraying blood and falling the undead one by one. It wasn't long before my sword arm began shaking, however, and my cuts became sloppy, though they still did the job. As more began to swarm, I backed up, quickening my killing. Surely an end to this group was coming, right?

The fight lasted about fifteen more minutes, and the corpses were still coming strong. At this point, I felt almost dizzy. With the rate of how I was at the moment, I was going to die and be eaten soon. A walker suddenly lunged at me and I yelped, stumbling back, which caused me to fall. The walkers surged towards me and my shaking hands went to a pistol at my waist, but I couldn't get a good grip on it. I closed my eyes quickly, and waited for death.

Abruptly, a squelching sound and multiple thuds rang out, and the sharp pain of teeth tearing me apart didn't come. Slowly, I opened my eyes, seeing a group of four people fighting the squadron of walkers that almost had me for dinner. They were armed with baseball bats, knives and guns, though they were falling the undead with the swinging weapons, since a gunshot would attract even more.

I gripped my sword once again and just barely managed to get to my feet. However, the moment I stood and steadied myself, the small but fierce group struck down the last abomination.

"You alright?" A girl asked as she walked towards me, hoisting her metal baseball bat against her shoulder as if she was a star softball player.

"Y-Yeah…just exhausted. Thank you for saving me." I breathed out, looking at the rest of the group to show I was grateful to all of them.

"No problem. We're all living, right? I'm Carrie." She said with a smile, holding her hand out.

"Ebony." I respond, taking her hand and shaking it.

"Great! Now that we are all acquainted, how about we get down to that farm and see if we can stay there?" Carrie spoke up.

"Sounds good." I nodded in return.

As the group and I made our way to the farmhouse, my feet were dragging and sheathing my sword wasn't going to happen anytime soon. My hands were shaking much too badly. I realized I was still blood covered, and was thankful for a moment that group of walkers had attacked. They may have attacked her since she looked like one of them if she hadn't been about to be killed.

The group finally made it to the front door, and I stepped up and knocked on the door three times, then began to sway a bit on my feet. A guy in the group stepped forward and rested his hands on my shoulders to steady me as we waited for whoever was in this farmhouse to answer the door…and hopefully take us in.


	5. The Seasons Pass

Chapter 5

The Seasons Pass

The next morning I woke up to find things almost normal again. Angie and Alex were over by the bookcase, reading and chatting. Clayton had joined Pablo and Maria, who were raiding the pantry. Julia, Bella, Maxwell and Kevin were talking on the couches. Rachel and Miguel were standing nearby, having their own conversation.

The strangest mix of happiness and despair suddenly hit me. I felt so glad to be alive, to be safe. Not only that, but I was among some of my best friends as well. But I couldn't help but remember what I had lost along the way. The hole that Sharon had left behind was still gnawing away at me. For some reason, however, the pain didn't make the good feelings go away. Instead, they accentuated one another, making each other stronger.

Eventually I snapped out of it. Once I had, I went over to get some food. I had almost forgotten how good a full meal could taste. We started with the perishable items, so there was a lot of fruit and meat for breakfast.

Eventually Rachel stood up. "I think we should go hunting a bit, gather up some more food before this stuff runs out. Who's with me?" Maxwell, Alex and I all agreed to come along. We all took bows, so that we wouldn't attract any walkers with gunshots. I took the wooden one I had brought with me, and Alex took the other wooden one that had been hanging up when we got here. Maxwell and Rachel got the more modern metal bows. I also too my makeshift spear and medical kit along, just in case, and Alex took the machete she had brought with her.

Within an hour, we were out the door. The sun was beginning its climb up into the sky as we walked down the steps. I knew the area well, so I ended up being the pathfinder for the group. We walked down the gravel driveway and came to the edge of the property, where it intersected on one side with the Patterson's property. On the other side of the long driveway was a forest full of hills and streams.

We decided to steer clear of the adjoining farm for now, choosing to scavenge from the forest rather than face the most likely undead Pattersons. We tread carefully down the driveway a bit further. Once we were about halfway to the main road, we headed off in between the trees.

We didn't see any walkers, which was a good sign. If we were going to stay at the farm long-term, we would need to make sure that we wouldn't have to take down a zombie every five seconds. Unfortunately, we didn't see many deer either, despite how abundant they were in the area. It wasn't until we decided to loop around back towards the farm that we caught sight of one.

We were walking along the base of a hill when Maxwell spotted it. It was running, and his first instinct was to fire off a shot at it. Before I had time to tell him to hold his fire, the arrow was already flying through the air. It embedded itself in the deer, which fell to the ground.

The wolves that had been chasing it turned towards us.

I cursed and readied an arrow. Alex and Rachel did the same, and Maxwell fired off another one at the wolves. It missed, but it was obvious that the wolves were intent on hunting us now. They began bounding down the slope, much faster than I had expected. We let fly, and I managed to hit one in the leg. It fell, along with the one Rachel had hit in the side. Alex was still taking aim as I dropped my bow and readied my spear. She finally fired, hitting the nearest wolf straight in the skull.

Maxwell was lining up another shot as they came upon us. He let loose just as one jumped up at him, clipping it's cheek and drawing blood. Unfortunately, the wolf did more than clip him. It clawed as it sprang up, knocking the bow away and ripping through his shirt. It used the momentum to get it's mouth towards his neck, and it tore into the flesh there as well.

I cried out in rage as I swung my spear around to defend him. I thrust it out at the wolf, sliding the blade in between it's ribs. He made a choking sound as it rolled off of him. Unfortunately, I couldn't help him any more just yet. Rachel had fired off another shot, killing one of the wolves that were coming towards me. Now I was forced to defend myself, swinging the butt of my spear out to catch one in the mouth.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Alex had dropped her bow and was putting her machete to good use. She was defending both herself and Maxwell, fending the wolves off with her blade. One dared to jump at her, and she swung the blade inwards, plunging it into the wolf's throat.

I kept pressing forward, cutting into the pack as deeply as I could. Soon there were none left standing. I walked calmly over to the one I had shot in the leg. It was trying to get up. Before it could fully turn it's attention towards me, I thrust my spear through it's head. Only then did the rage and the bloodlust begin to subside.

Once I had cleared my head of the red haze of battle, I ran over to Maxwell. I could tell he was bleeding out, and I had to do something. I opened up my backpack and took out my medical kit. Then I saw blood on it. Her blood. And I broke. I couldn't take it; there was too much blood already.

I could tell Alex was talking to me, trying to get me to snap out of it. But I couldn't really hear her. Eventually, she took the medical kit from me and started wrapping bandages around his neck. I could tell he was already dead because they didn't soak very quickly. Most of the blood was on the forest floor, mixing with the dirt, turning it to mud. Even though I had seen things like this before, I wanted to scream, or vomit, or something. But I couldn't. All I could do was sit there.

Eventually, we had to leave. We couldn't carry him. All we could do was leave on shaking feet.

* * *

We mourned him that night. We ate well, but it turned to ash in my mouth. It was so hard to loose him so soon after Sharon.

The nightmares finally came that night.

Everyone was subdued the next day, especially those of us who knew him well. I spent most of my morning out in the garden out in front of the farmhouse. Working helped me keep my mind off things, at least for a while. I had always been interested in different types of plants and animals, and my mom had me pull weeds and water her plants when I was a kid, so I was used to the tasks involved.

As the sun was beginning to set, Alex called me in for dinner. As we walked inside, I asked her, "How did you get here, anyway? You never really told me."

She looked down at her feet for a second, then back up at me. "I was with my sister and her boyfriend. At a place called Cheat Lake. When the outbreak started… most of the people were trying to get to safety by going out on the water. Where the zombies couldn't get to them. We decided to stay on land instead, heading south to meet up with some family in Buckhannon. The thing is, we were attacked on the way there. I hit my head, and we were separated. By the time I woke up, there was no sign of them. But I had gotten your text while I was unconscious, so when I found that, I decided to head over here."

By now we had gotten our food and were sitting down at the table. I nodded slowly, mulling all this over. Then I looked over to Angie. "How did you and Clayton get here? Where were you when all this happened?"

She fiddled with the food on her plate a bit. "My family… they all turned. There was nothing I could do. So I just moved on. I went to go find Clayton… He's kinda been my motivation this entire time. The reason I keep going."

I nodded again, a bit more soberly. "So where were you when this all happened? Were you at home or-" I stopped talking as soon as I heard the knock on the door. Everyone else did too. Everyone turned to look as I went to open it.

Standing outside was a group of seven people, 3 men and 4 women. They all had a mix of fear and hope swirling around them. It came as such a shock; I barely knew how to respond. So instead I just let them in, and then shut the door behind them.

One of them, a blonde woman who reminded me a bit of Sharon, came up and introduced herself. "I'm Carrie," She said. "This is my boyfriend Tim, those two are Chris and Adam, the ones next to the wall are Aaliyah and Nate, and the one Nate his helping to stay on her feet is Arya. We just met up with her. Who're you guys?"

I stammered a bit; I definitely hadn't expected company, aside from those who had already come. Still, I eventually gathered my wits about me and introduced the members of my group. She greeted each one by name. Afterwards I invited them to sit and eat dinner with us. They happily accepted the invitation. Arya told me her story, of how she was a photographer like Chris, and how she had come through the very same camp where Sharon had died. With so many reminders of her, it felt like I wouldn't be able to hold it together. But I did, and I enjoyed eating a meal with the new members of the group.

* * *

Just before bed, I called a meeting for us to take inventory of what the newcomers had brought with them. First I asked Angie. "I have a bit of food, some books to read, brass knuckles, two knives, an ice axe, two pistols, a slingshot, two grenades, some ammo, 25 pellets for the slingshot, and five life straws."

We all stared at her. "Damn, did you hit an arsenal or something before coming here?" Pablo asked.

She grinned. "Well, for some of it, I was training at a karate school when things went downhill. Thankfully walkers don't do karate. For the rest of it, I just kinda had it lying around…"

"I'm almost afraid to ask which ones fall into the latter category," Arya said.

I laughed at that, then looked over to Clayton. "What do you have?"

He blushed a bit. "I have a… uh… a glue gun."

Now everyone was laughing a bit. "Seriously? A glue gun? Why do you have that?"

His face got even redder. "Look, Angie told me to bring a gun. I didn't think the situation would be serious, so I brought it as a joke. Aside from that, I have some food, some water, and a knife we picked up along the way." I almost didn't hear him over the laughter. Hopefully Angie would share with him.

I looked over to Carrie. "I have some water, a flashlight, a first aid kit, some matches, and a baseball bat," She said. She gestured to Tim. "I have some water, and a hammer," He stated bluntly.

Chris and Adam had a camera, tripods, and an axe for each of them. Aaliyah and Nate had their phones, some food, a flashlight, some water, and two knives. It was clear that we would need to reallocate or share some of the weapons, based on the fact that there were uneven pairs in the group like Clayton and Angie. Finally, Arya opened up her bag. "I have two pistols, some ammo, a sleeping bag, some food and water, and this." She held out a short, one-handed sword. All the eyes in the group widened at the elegant weapon, especially the guys like Pablo and I.

I cleared my throat. "Well, it seems that we're fairly well provisioned. I guess I'll see you guys in the morning?" Everyone nodded, agreeing that we should all get some sleep. I slept alone again, but far better than the last night.


	6. Doubts And Ash

Chapter 6

Doubts and Ash

The next couple of days were relatively uneventful. I got to know Arya and Carrie and all of them a little better. They all seemed very kind, and everyone seemed to get along well. I also got to hang out with Alex and Pablo and everyone, which made life tolerable. There was always the constant threat of a walker attack to keep us on edge, but at the same time being around so many good people helped give me the energy to keep moving. I spent a lot of my time out in the garden, or inside talking or helping people out if the got a cut or something.

The main problem was that our supplies were finite. Some of the others organized hunting parties, but I usually stayed behind. I didn't really want to deal with hunting, especially after what happened with Maxwell. Angie took a group over to the Patterson's farm at one point. There were no survivors there, just a few zombies wearing the Patterson's faces.

Regardless, our supplies were dwindling again. We needed more food, clothing, medicine; basic things that you take for granted until they're in short supply. Eventually, Angie decided to take Miguel and I along with her and Arya into the nearest town. "You two are the ones who know the area best. It would be stupid not to bring you along." Reluctantly, I agreed.

Later that day, we got our supplies together and headed down the road towards Delaplaine. We made sure to close the gate behind us as we got onto the main road, which was even more deserted than usual. It took a while for us to run into any walkers, and an arrow from my bow quickly dispatched the first one we found.

As I went to retrieve the arrow, Angie gathered us all together. "Ok, we're going to need to move silently, so we should probably use hand signals. Agreed?" Everyone nodded. "Ok, so two fingers pointed forward means 'go there'. One hand held up means 'stop'. One finger circled in the air means 'regroup'. One fist held up means 'fan out'. Everyone got that?" She had been demonstrating each signal, so we all understood what she meant. We also agreed to keep from firing our guns unless we absolutely had to. We planned to be in and out quickly so we could be back to the farm by dark.

As we moved towards the town, we found more and more debris in and around the road. There was glass and metal everywhere, and some of the cars and buildings were charred and gutted. It occurred to me that the scene before my eyes was probably similar to the aftermath of what I had seen back on the highway. There were bodies too, littered along the road and in the windows and doorways of the buildings. A few had gunshot wounds, but most appeared to have been killed by blunt trauma. Shattered skulls and broken ribcages. In many places there were buzzards circling, feasting on the dead. They were huge and fat, almost obese from being so well fed.

The air was thick with smoke, which made it a little hard to see, but also gave us some cover for sneaking around. I had my spear in hand, tip up in front of me just in case I had to use it. We walked close together, in a straight line, looking around for any places that looked promising. Thankfully there were surprisingly few walkers, and those that were in the area either didn't see us or smell us because of all the smoke, or were quickly dispatched by an arrow to the head or a blade to the neck.

The first place we hit was a hardware store. Everyone started looking around, trying to find anything of use. Most of the shelves had been knocked down, and there were things all over the floor. Most of it wasn't of any use to us, but there were a few things that looked helpful. At one point Miguel came up to me with a hatchet asking, "Can I keep it? Can I keep it?" Like it was a puppy that followed him home.

I shushed him, but smiled and nodded all the same. As old as he got, my younger brother never really became any more mature. In fact at times he seemed even less mature. After he found the axe we looked around a bit more. They had one or two items that we hadn't already found at the farm, but nothing much. Most of it was either unusable or taken by scavengers.

After we had gathered up everything we could find, we moved on. The next store we hit was an electronics store. It was one of the first places to be looted, but we did find a few items. Angie came up to me at one point with a square-ish phone in hand. "What's that?" I asked her.

"It's a Nokia. They're supposed to be, like, indestructible. Besides, who knows what'll come in handy?" I smiled at her. She could often be just as silly as Miguel, if not more so. Age was not tantamount to maturity in this group. Then again, who needs maturity?

We gathered up a few items, and then moved out again. This time we headed for a gas station. We needed fuel for the generators, as well as non-perishable foods. There was still some beef jerky on the shelves, and a few crackers and other things that would probably last us a while. There were even some canned goods among the clutter. We also managed to find a small can of gas that was about half full, in between two empty ones. It wasn't much, but it was all we could find, so we took it.

The sun was getting lower as we headed towards the next store. I tapped Angie on the shoulder. "We should probably get moving after this store. It's a bit later than I would like it to be, and this smoke will make it even harder to see at night." She nodded, and then followed Miguel as he led the way to a grocery store across the street.

The grocery store was relatively well stocked. We actually found some more canned foods, along with a couple of bags of chips, which were reduced to crumbs but still edible, and some oatmeal. Compared to what we had found in the other places, we had made out like bandits. Arya smiled as she put each item in her bag. Her stomach growled a bit, and that was when I remembered that she was still recovering from before. I took a piece of beef jerky out of my bag and handed it to her. She smiled at me now as she took it, and I smiled back. Then she ate it in a few bites and put the wrapping paper in her pocket, and we kept on working. It was a short moment, but worth far more than just the time itself.

We were just getting ready to get out the door when Miguel tripped. He fell into a mostly empty display case, which tipped over onto the floor. At the same time, some of the cans fell out of his pack, hitting the floor with a loud clanging noise.

A walker out on the street turned to look at us. It hadn't noticed us before because we were so far away, but now it was taking notice of us, as were some of the others nearby. We all tried to duck down and hide, but it was too late. The zombies were already shuffling towards us.

We started piling things against the doors as quickly as we could. Thankfully, there were a lot of fallen shelves to use. Most of us kept our weapons in one hand, just in case. We were only about halfway done when the first walker reached us. Arya was able to take it out with her sword, but there were more right behind it.

Angie and Miguel kept piling stuff against the doors while I helped her fend them off. I stabbed one with my spear, then used my makeshift knife to slash across into another. I sheared off some of the rotting skin on it's face, carving away a part of the façade and revealing the gristly bones beneath.

While I was occupied with those two, another one lunged out at me. It grabbed my arm, and I cried out as it moved in to take a bite. Just then, Arya swung around, blade glinting off the dying rays of the sun. She thrust her sword deep into the walker's skull, and I pushed it off me hurriedly. Then we backed up into the store as Miguel and Angie finished blocking off the front of the store with debris.

We all gasped for breath as we made sure that everyone was ok and we still had everything. Nobody seemed to be hurt and nothing was damaged or lost. After a few minutes we agreed that since we didn't have much of a choice but to stay the night, we would start setting up a small camp near the center of the store.

As we were setting up, I went over to talk to Arya. "Hey, thanks for saving my ass back there."

She looked up and smiled again. It was nice to see among all the rubble and chaos. "No problem. We're even now."

We ended up making a little clearing in the middle of all the junk where we could put down our stuff. We used our packs as pillows again, just like we had on the first night of the end of the world. I had a sudden flashback to Sharon, her smiling face, the way she told me she loved me, the light in her eyes. The light going dark. Her jaws open wide, ready to sink into my skin. Her blood on the forest floor.

I shook myself out of the waking nightmare. Angie looked over at me with more than a little concern. She made the "form up" sign, and we all gathered in close. "Guys, I think Keith and I are gonna take first watch," She whispered. "You can get to bed if you want. We'll wake you in about two hours or so." Arya and Miguel nodded.

Angie and I walked over to the border of our little clearing. "What's up? You had me scared there for a second."

I sighed softly. The moans of the zombies outside seemed a little too loud. And a lot too real. "I was just remembering the way things were. Back when she was alive. I miss having someone who can hold me, let me know everything's all right. Someone who can keep me anchored and sane in a world that's lost all semblance of sanity."

She nodded slowly. "I know what you mean. Back when everything went to hell, I lost everything, just like everyone else. Except for one very special thing. I still have Clayton. He's the one who's kept me going, even after all this. I really do know what she meant to you."

I turned to look at her. I could tell that she was being completely sincere. "I've probably said this before, but thank you for being such a great friend to me."

She grinned. "What, just great? Not amazing? Or spectacular?" I knew we were in a place where it wasn't a very good idea, but I laughed a bit.

"Yeah, those things too. I really-" I stopped in the middle of my sentence and raised my spear. She turned to see the walker that was roaming the broken aisles. I moved to attack it, but she held up a hand to stop me.

"I've got this." She took out her ice axe and crouched low so the walker wouldn't notice her. I kept my spear ready as she moved around it and struck it down from behind. Once we were sure it was finished, I walked over to inspect it with her.

"We cleared the place out, so it must have gotten in from some kind of back door," She said. "We need to find it quickly so others don't get in. Let's split up to cover more ground." I nodded. We both turned around and went in opposite directions, staying low and keeping as quiet as possible. It didn't take me long to find the door. I closed it quickly and found some debris to keep it from opening up again.

I went to find Angie and then we went back to the cleared-out portion of the store. We waited around a bit for our shift to finish, trading jokes and stories. Once the time came, we woke up Arya and Miguel for their watch. Then I lay down and slowly fell asleep, waking only when it was time for me to be on watch again.


	7. Hold The Line

Chapter 7

Hold The Line

I awoke to the sound of a gunshot in the distance.

The others bolted awake along with me. The shot had been loud enough to wake us up, so it must have been close by. Unfortunately it was almost impossible to tell exactly where it came from. We all started gathering our things as we came up with a plan to investigate. Miguel and I decided to take the door that I had found last night out onto the street, and Angie and Arya would follow. Then we would split up and check around the building, circling around it to meet up on the other side. Once we had, we would figure out where to go next.

Miguel and I were just about halfway around the store when we spotted the source of the gunshot. A beautiful woman and a man in a lab coat were running away from a large group of walkers. The man was holding a pistol, and the woman had a small assault rifle. We waved our arms, unable to shout for fear of attracting more zombies. Thankfully they saw us and started running towards us. They followed us as we ran around the building and signaled to the others to go back inside. Once we were sure the two strangers were following, we went back inside as well.

I turned to check on them after we were safely inside. The man was coming through the door, but the woman was aiming her gun at the horde behind us. The sun was just starting to rise, and it illuminated her body with a soft orange light. Her stance was confident and as unbreakable as solid steel. She looked so determined and dauntless, not to mention mesmerizingly beautiful. I only snapped out of it when she fired the rifle several times, taking down a few of the walkers at the front of the crowd. She had the firing rate set low, probably to conserve ammo, but I was more concerned about the noise. "Hey!" I shouted above the sound of her gunfire. "You wanna bring the whole town down on our heads? Get in here!"

She turned to me and nodded. Keeping her gun aimed at the mob, she backed through the door and I closed it behind her. "What was that? You trying to get yourself killed or something?"

She shrugged casually. "I was just thinning the ranks a bit. I intend on taking out as many of these things as I can. However I can." She slung the gun over her shoulder and held out her hand. "My name is Annie."

I stood there like an idiot for five whole seconds before shaking her hand. "Keith. My name is Keith." I turned around to look at the man in the lab coat. He introduced himself as Xavier.

"Well I'm Miguel," My brother said, "And we should probably take you guys to meet the others before Keith's drool starts forming a puddle." I turned to glare at him and he just laughed as he walked back towards our makeshift camp. I chased after him, and Annie and Xavier followed.

We got to the clearing in the middle of the rubble and everyone introduced themselves. Once we had, I asked what they were doing shooting up the place. "We've been looking for a way to cure this disease," Annie explained. "Unfortunately we've also been running into zombies every time we turn a corner. We came here looking for basic supplies, but we got surrounded and decided we'd have to shoot our way out."

"Who exactly is 'we'?" Angie asked skeptically. She seemed a bit disconcerted with the entire situation.

"Well, there were more of us. From the lab, I mean." Xavier looked over at Annie. "The place I was from. Most of them were killed pretty early on. Annie here is just a writer who knows how to handle a gun. We ran into each other on the road and she wanted to help find a way to stop all this madness."

"And the best way to do that is find some way to treat the disease," Annie said. "Although we haven't made very much progress."

"Maybe we could help you," I said. "I used to be an RN, so I know a lot about different diseases. And one of my Uncles used to have a makeshift lab back at the farm. It wasn't much more than a chemistry set in one of the barns, mind you, but if you have equipment of your own then that would be a good place to set it up."

Xavier mulled this over for a second, and then nodded. "Seems like as good a plan as any. We could definitely use the protection, too... What do you think Annie?"

She nodded too. "Sounds great to me. When do we leave?"

I grinned at her. "Give us a second to pack first… Plus we should probably think of a way to get past the zombies knocking on our door."

Angie raised her hand like an overly eager student in the middle of class. "Oh! Can I do it?!"

* * *

We were ready to go in less than ten minutes. As we all gathered around the doorway, Angie pulled out a grenade from her pack with one hand, holding one of her pistols in the other. "Ok, so once this goes off, we have a very small window of opportunity. It'll take out all the walkers nearby, but it'll also attract others. I need you all to be ready to run. You can use guns, but conserve ammo as much as possible. Agreed?" We all nodded. I loaded my shotgun.

Angie opened the door just a bit. She pulled the pin. Threw the grenade. Shut the door.

There was a deafening bang and she threw the door wide open. We ran out into the chaos.

I purposefully tried not to notice the effects of the grenade. I mostly succeeded, but the smell still made me want to vomit. I kept moving though, and Annie pushed ahead of me. She looked like she was born for this… strangely free, despite the fact that she was being forced to run away. She had her assault rifle raised, and as we ran she picked off a few of the walkers up ahead.

Arya and Miguel were right beside me, the former with two pistols in hand. Miguel didn't have a gun, but he was able to hit one or two zombies with his slingshot. Still, he made sure to stay as close to me as possible.

Angie brought up the rear, bringing down any zombies that came too close with her own pistols. Xavier was with her, helping her thin out the crowd behind us. With Annie in the lead, we cut a path through town the way we had come. Eventually Miguel ran out of slingshot pellets, switching to his hatchet for protection. Arya, Xavier and Angie used a lot of clips, but thankfully they had a few to spare. I used a few shells myself, and it soon started looking like would have to switch to using my rifle.

At first we were able to keep the walkers well away from the group, but gradually the tide of battle turned against us. With a normal enemy, our display of firepower would most likely have scared off any unarmed forces, and possibly even some well-equipped ones. However, we were facing an enemy that knew no fear, or fatigue for that matter. As we ran on, we started to slow, and the walkers started closing in.

At one point, a zombie almost overtook Annie. Using the last shot I had chambered, I took it down, allowing her to keep moving. She nodded her thanks, and I returned the gesture as I reloaded my shotgun. As I did however, another walker came in from the side towards me. I cursed as it moved towards me, thinking I would have to start fighting hand to hand. Without my spear or knife, that would most likely end in disaster.

Thankfully, my little brother was watching out for me. He swung his hatchet at the undead creature, severing it's arm and knocking it to the side. I was able to reload as he finished the job by decapitating it, and we kept running.

By this point we were almost to the edge of the town. Annie let out a cry of encouragement, spurring us on. We weaved in between cars and trucks, at points even vaulting over the hoods to escape the horde behind us. There were a few more cars on the road, slowing the walkers who had to go around them to reach us. I was also thankful to note that the majority of the walkers were behind us now, as there weren't nearly as many on the road as there had been in the town.

We were pulling ahead of the walkers now. Annie pulled back a bit, and Miguel and I pulled up ahead since we knew the terrain best. After what seemed like both an eternity and a brief moment, we reached the side road that lead to the farm. The walkers were thinning out a bit, but there were still quite a few tailing us. I risked getting out my phone as I ran, calling Alex on speed-dial.

The phone only rang twice before she picked up. "Keith? What's wrong? Where are you guys?"

"We're on our way to where you are, ETA approximately 10 minutes or less. I need you all to be ready for a fight when we get back, just in case. We have zombies on our tail, so be ready with silent weapons; bows and melee weapons only. Got it?" There was a pause where I heard her shouting something to the others.

"We'll see what we can do, but do we really need only silent weapons? We have plenty of guns, and we could take them out faster that way…" I could hear the concern in her voice. I tried my best to calm down, for her sake.

"Only if you absolutely have to. I don't want to attract any extra walkers to your position with gunfire. If we're going to stay at the farm for any length of time, we need to lay low. I'll see you when we get there, ok?" She sighed shakily, but agreed.

I put my phone away, as well as my shotgun. Then I took out my bow as the others covered me. Angie had overheard enough to get what I was doing, and told the others to do the same. It slowed us down a bit, but we were just barely able to hold the zombies at bay. Soon we all had our guns put away in favor of more silent weapons, and we were coming up on the farm fast. There were still a few zombies left, but thankfully it was only a small fraction of the original force that had been chasing us. Still, we had to keep running as fast as we could. There were no more cars to use as cover, and we were at a slight disadvantage since our choice of weapons had been restricted.

We ran through the forest, and then came out into the field that marked the beginning of the final stretch. As we came through the copse of trees that marked the beginning of the driveway, I was relieved to see several figures waiting with weapons ready. As we approached, several arrows streaked through the air and took down the zombies near the front. Our small scouting party finally reached the line that Alex had formed for us, and we turned to join them in defending our new home. With our combined strength, we finally killed off the last of the zombies.

Panting for breath, we finally relaxed. Most of us headed in, although Miguel decided to introduce Annie and Xavier to the rest of the group. I couldn't help but watch as they went, although eventually I turned my gaze towards Alex. We shared a smile and I offered her a high five. She took the offer, laughing a bit. "You made it. I don't know how, but you did. Not only that, it appears you have some new friends."

* * *

I told her the whole story as we went inside. She listened to the whole thing with increasingly wide eyes. By the time I was finished the sun was getting pretty high in the sky, so we decided to invite our new guests to lunch. I sat with them and explained our little set up. Xavier decided that he would sleep in the barn where the lab was. At first I was a bit skeptical, but then I realized that the house was getting a bit crowded anyway. Miguel, Rachel, Clayton, Angie, Pablo, Maria, Julia, Kevin and I decided that it would be best if we slept in the barn, while Alex, Carrie, Tim, Chris, Adam, Aaliyah, Nate, and Arya slept in the house. That way we had more room to sleep. While it didn't seem like the best arrangement at first, we had decided to turn off the air conditioning in the house to save power, so it wasn't really much worse in the barn than it was in the house, especially due to the warm late-summer nights we were having. At least, that was the mentality of the more adventuresome people who would be sleeping there. The others decided to just roll with it.

After lunch we started setting up our sleeping bags. There was a lot of room in the barn, and we were able to arrange them in groups so that everyone could sleep with their friends. Annie set hers up near where I was going to sleep with Pablo and Maria.

As we walked back towards the house, I caught up with her. "So what were things like for you before… all this?"

She shrugged. "Not all that great." She looked down at the ground. "Is it a bad thing if I wasn't all that sad to see people die?" She was shaking a bit. I could tell she was remembering something she would rather forget. "I don't know. A lot of people have hurt me in the past. So I wasn't too torn up to see them go. Do you think that makes me a bad person?"

I looked at her. "No. I don't think it does. Of the two of us, I'm probably the bad person." I let out a self-depreciating chuckle. "Trust me, I've made a lot of mistakes. I screw things up, I fail at life. I'm a thoroughly broken person." I remembered Sharon for just a second, her blood on my hands. I pushed the memory down, singing a few lines of one of my favorite songs under my breath. "We are, we are/ We are made from broken parts/ We are, we are/ We are broken from the start/ And our hearts, our hearts/ They are beating in the dark/ 'cause we are, we are/ We are built from broken parts…"

She was looking at me now. A little bit of that beautiful smile was breaking through. "Well, if your heart is broken, you can have mine."

We were slowing down now, falling behind the rest of the group. "You could take mine. Really, you already have." We were moving closer to each other. Some people think that the more you learn about someone, the less desirable they seem. But with every second that passed she seemed more beautiful.

Soon she was in my arms, and I in hers. I kissed her, and the world around us melted away. In an instant, all the pain, all the rage, all the sadness, disappeared. I could feel her light, and it filled me almost to bursting. Every inch of my body was warm and full of energy.

She pulled away. The evening sun shone on her, almost making her glow. "I love you," She said.

I held her closer and whispered in her ear, like it was the greatest secret in the entire world, "I love you too."

* * *

"You what?!" Pablo almost shouted. This was why I had decided to tell him when we were on our own working in the garden. "You just met this girl! And now you're telling me you're in love with her?"

"It's not like I can help it!" I told him. " I don't know, it's just… since Sharon… I've been so lonely. There's been this emptiness… and she make it all go away."

"And what about her, by the way? What about Sharon?" He looked at me skeptically.

I sighed. "I don't know… look, she's gone now anyway. And I just… I don't want to be alone anymore. I can't…" I looked up at him. His expression was a bit softer now.

"I know, bro. I just want you to be careful. Ok?" I nodded.

Eventually the sun started to sink below the horizon, and we decided to head over to the barn. Most of the others were already there. We stayed up and talked a bit, laying on our sleeping bags and watching the last shafts of light fade away. I talked to Annie about all the books we had both read, "The Fault in our Stars" and "Harry Potter" and all those. Pablo joined in the conversation, and we told Annie some of our anecdotes from the good old days. Soon most of the others were sleeping. I discreetly kissed Annie good night, and then we fell asleep, completely content.


	8. Bring Them Down

Chapter 8

Bring Them Down

I woke up to hear Xavier tinkering downstairs. I sighed as I tried to get myself fully awake, breathing in Annie's scent. I looked over at her; her face was almost angelic. I woke her up by kissing her forehead. She kissed me back, and we just lay there for a second. I brushed her hair with one hand, sliding it down her face, feeling the warmth of her skin. I had the other hand draped delicately around her. She smiled up at me, and I forgot everything else. It was just her and I.

Unfortunately, we had to get up at some point. Eventually I gave her one more kiss, and then we went to go see what Xavier was doing. He had set up a lab with a microscope and some assorted petri dishes and beakers of chemicals. Some of it he had taken with him, and the rest was already there, left over from my uncle. The smell was awful, but he seemed to know what he was doing.

"So what have you figured out so far?" I asked him once I had settled in among the equipment. "Any luck with finding something that can stop all this?"

"Kinda," He replied. "Based on various reports from before things completely fell apart, I've come to the conclusion that the disease thrives best in fluids; blood, cerebro-spinal fluid, etcetera. So my first conclusion was to starve it of it's transmission method."

"So you would treat it with diuretics?"

"What are those?" Annie asked.

"They make the body expel fluid faster. But of course that's not feasible because the body needs those fluids. The other thing I figured out about the disease is that, based on the extreme fever and, in later stages, the cannibalistic tendencies, it most likely targets the amygdala. That part of the brain regulates both body temperature and emotions like anger. So if it over-stimulates that area, that would explain the symptoms."

"So, you would treat it with antipyretics, like Tylenol, and mood stabilizers, like lithium and Depakote?" I concluded.

"Exactly," He said. "Although I don't have much on hand… I found some Tylenol in the medicine cabinet, and there was some lithium in this chemistry set, but there isn't much, and it's not in the best condition."

I nodded. "Next time we're in town, we can get you some supplies." I looked over to Annie. "You wanna go get some breakfast?" She nodded, and we walked over to the house, holding hands.

Once we were inside, the inevitable questions came. "Are you two together now?" Alex asked. I looked over at Annie, and she shrugged. We hadn't really discussed the details of our relationship; we just kind of had one.

"I guess so," I replied.

As always, Angie had the most interesting comment. "Make sure you don't have sex," she said, "Or you'll get pregnant and die." We all stared at her, waiting for an explanation. "Pregnant people are slow," she said, "so they get eaten first. So if you get pregnant, you die." I shook my head, but despite the implications of her macabre humor I grinned a bit.

About halfway into the meal, Julia stood up. "Guys, I don't mean to freak anyone out, but there's a walker out there." Everyone got up, instantly tense. We all went over to the window, looking out to see a single zombie walking up towards the farmhouse.

Arya grabbed her sword. "Aaliyah, Chris, and Tim, come with me. We'll handle it." They all got up and grabbed their weapons. As they walked out the door, we all turned to watch.

Their small group slowly approached the walker. At Arya's command, they split up, surrounding it. It turned it's head this way and that, trying to track them all. It's jaw was working, clenching and releasing, and we could tell it was most likely growling at them. Then Arya moved in and hacked at it's neck. The sword went part of the way through then stuck. Annie shifted nervously as the zombie closed in on her.

Before it got too close, Chris moved in with her axe and chopped into the thing's head. It fell to the ground, and as it did Arya was able to wrench her sword free. Arya pointed at Tim and Aaliyah, then at the fallen zombie. They nodded and started dragging it towards the stream that ran under the driveway. As they did, Arya and Chris headed inside.

"Hopefully the stream will wash away the scent, if it doesn't wash away the body entirely," Arya said.

"Do you think it followed you guys here from the town?" Julia asked "We haven't seen many other walkers since we got here. I could have just been a matter of time, but…"

I shifted in place. Had we led the zombies here? We had been really careful not to, but still… "We should start patrolling our borders. I hope to God we didn't bring this upon us, but just in case something does happen, we should be ready. Besides, it'll keep us occupied. Any objections?" Nobody seemed to be against the decision, so Angie and Clayton were set up to be the first ones on patrol duty.

Annie and I spent a lot of time on patrol as well. It wasn't too bad. It kept us occupied, and it gave us a chance to spend time together. Still, it was nervous work. Every time something moved out in the forest, it set us on edge. There was no way of knowing when the next attack would come, or whether or not we had caused the last one. In a place we had thought to be safe, it was a grim reminder of how dangerous things still were.

A few days later, I had an idea. About a mile away there was a park known as Sky Meadows. It used to be a farm like my Uncle's, but then it had been bought by the state and made into a place where people could go hiking and stargazing. Annie and I volunteered to scout it out as a possible safe haven.

We got in pretty easily. Not many people had been headed to the park before the fall, and those who had had most likely moved out to the more wild parts of the park, out near the mountains. We only saw a few walkers, and we disposed of them quickly.

Once we were in, we went to the old farmhouse that had been repurposed to be the camp office when the state had bought the property. It was dark and silent inside. The only light came from the rays of the setting sun filtering through the windows, like liquid fire pouring across tables and desks. We searched the ground floor, and then the upper floors. The whole place was deserted. As night fell, we laid out our sleeping bags so that we could lie next to each other.

I held her close, speaking to her softly. "This is all I've ever wanted, you know. To just be with someone I love, completely at peace with the world. That's how you make me feel, Annie. Despite all this, you make me feel like everything is going to be ok. You have no idea how much I wish that we could just lie here forever, safe in each other's arms." I kissed her lightly on the lips. "I love you. With each passing moment, I love you more than the last."

"I love you, too," She said. Even though I had heard her say it before, I still became almost overwhelmed with joy when she said it. Then we lay there, just loving each other, drifting off to sleep.


	9. All Shall Fade

Chapter 9

All Shall Fade

I started loosing track of the days. Near the beginning, I had a pretty steady count of every day that had passed since that first day when we left the city. Every day was it's own story, each was different and dangerous and memorable. Since then the days have started to blend together. Not that they were no longer memorable; every second with Annie was another good memory that kept me going. Yet the routine was setting in. It became harder to tell one day from the next.

No routine lasts forever.

I remembered some things, forgot others. The little details didn't always stick. It wasn't entirely a bad thing though. Living in hell, it's often a blessing to forget the details.

Likewise, I sometimes remembered the details I would rather forget. I doubted that I would ever forget the people I had lost. The ways I lost them. But it stopped being quite as painful. I was finally able to cope, to think but not become overwhelmed. As usual, Annie helped a lot in that respect.

So in the end, I didn't really care if I forgot. I was finally able to let go.

Over time, we were able to gather some supplies to test Xavier's theory. We made a few trips into town, although they weren't quite as eventful as our previous ones. We were able to avoid the walkers much more easily and get in and out quickly. We were able to find a lot of the medications he specified in local pharmacies; no one had really thought to loot all the mood stabilizers when the world had been ending.

The next step was to find a test subject. Or rather, test subjects. Xavier had come up with several different mixtures, and the plan was to test each of them to see if they were viable treatments.

Since I had been involved with the project, albeit loosely, he decided to take me along. We also brought along Angie, Annie and Pablo. We set out around mid-morning, moving towards the road that led into town.

When we reached it, we found the perfect test subject. There was a walker buckled into one of the cars. As we passed by, it moaned and gnashed it's teeth at us. It obviously hadn't left the car since it had turned, and wasn't going to any time soon. It was badly decayed, and the t-shirt it wore had been reduced to strips of cloth clinging to it's upper body. The seats were covered in substances I didn't even want to try and identify.

Cautiously, I opened the car door and Xavier got one of the syringes out of his pack. Angie kept her weapon at the ready, making sure she would be able to put the walker down if it became a threat. Pablo and Annie stayed on the lookout.

Making sure to keep well away from the zombie's biting mouth and scratching hands, Xavier injected the fluid in the syringe into the zombie's body. After about half a minute, it stopped scrabbling so much. It's movements slowed, and the creature looked a bit more dead than it had before. "It's working!" Xavier exclaimed.

Unfortunately, it only worked for a minute or two. Soon the undead thing was flailing just as much as it had been before, if not more so. Xavier sighed with exasperation, but not defeat. "Come on," he said. "We still have a few more combinations to try."

However, before we could walk away, we heard a click behind us. We turned to see the walker somehow undoing it's seatbelt, struggling a bit but succeeding all the same. Thankfully Angie reacted quickly and decisively, chopping it's head clean off before it could get out of the car.

Xavier moved over to the head and examined it for a few minutes. "Fascinating," He said. "It seems that something in the serum I administered increased the level of cognition in the zombie. Somehow, I caused it to remember just enough that it knew how to escape." He got up, ignoring the astonished looks we were giving him "We ought to be on guard in case a similar situation occurs with one of the other test subjects. That being said, let's go find one!"

Numbly, we followed him down the road, looking in the windows of all the cars we came across. As we searched I was tempted to keep one eye on Annie, but I knew that she could handle herself. At some points I could have sworn I saw movement among the cars, but whenever I turned to look there were no walkers to be seen. Eventually, we found another zombie, but the results were the same as before, and stayed the same with each "test subject" we found. Eventually Xavier decided to pack it up and head back. "We have enough data for now," He said. "Now I just need to modify my approach based on the data."

He said it would take a few days to "modify his approach". In the mean time, we kept things running around the farm as usual. We still had the patrols going, which is why we had some warning before the attack. Still, it wasn't much.

The warning we got was a bullet to the head. Aaliyah and Nate were on patrol. Most of us heard the gunshot, and a few of us saw him fall. Aaliyah was right next to him. Thankfully, she had the presence of mind to run back to the house, taking cover as she went.

The ambush came from the woods. Thankfully they were far enough that they didn't hit anyone else immediately, but they were closing in fast. It was impossible to tell how many there were, but it seemed like a lot.

I was over by the barn with Annie when it happened. I knew we would have to act quickly if we were going to survive this. "Weapons free!" I shouted. "Grab your guns and open fire! Drive them off!" Then I took Annie so that we could grab our weapons. I grabbed my shotgun, planning on getting in close. Annie picked up her assault rifle; we had agreed that if we ever needed to, we would defend each other and the group in battle, fighting at each other's sides.

The others came into the barn to grab their weapons. Rachel and Miguel stayed by the door, ready to use their melee weapons on anyone coming in. The rest of us moved to windows or cracks in the wooden walls so that we could take aim at the invaders.

I could see though the window I had chosen that the group members in the house had already taken up their weapons and opened fire on the attackers. Some of them had noticed that we had a position in the barn as well, and started shooting at the windows. I ducked, narrowly avoiding a rifle round that whizzed by my head. As the bandit reloaded, Annie fired off a quick burst at his position.

As the invaders moved up, I started firing my shotgun more and more frequently. The sounds of gunfire around us were almost deafening. At one point, Angie lobbed a grenade at their position, taking out no less than three of them. Unfortunately it was her last one, but we did a pretty good job of driving them back.

Of course, that was when things started to go bad. One of the stray bullets hit a gas tank near the base of the barn. It exploded, sending a wave of pure heat and force up the side of the barn, blowing out a large portion of the wall. Annie and I scrambled back. "Xavier," She whispered. He had been in the lower part of the barn, the part that had taken the worst of the blast.

Unfortunately, there was no time to mourn him at the moment. We tried our best to evacuate the barn, which was burning all around us. This left us open to enemy fire. On the bright side, there were only a few enemies left. I ran towards the barn, taking out several of the bandits along the way. Then Annie took the lead. She cut through them like butter, mowing them down with long bursts from her rifle. Pablo was also fighting hard, firing off his twin pistols and, once they were empty, his SMG. We did a lot of damage, keeping to cover as we made our way to the farm house.

Only a few of us were injured, and only Nate and Xavier had been killed. Still, we had other problems on our hands. "Every walker for miles around will have heard that," I said. "We need to leave, and fast."

"Leave to where?" Carrie said. "We can't just pack up and go without a plan!"

"I have one," Pablo said. "My brother Danny is staying up in Vermont with a friend. We can go up there to stay with him."

I glanced over questioningly at Annie. She nodded. "Annie and I are with Pablo," I said. It's at least worth having a look. Anyone else have any input on the matter?" Nobody seemed to, so we all went to pack up for the journey. Aaliyah also got Julia, Kevin and Bella to help her dig a grave for Nate. We would have done the same for Xavier, but there wasn't much left of him.

Thankfully most of our supplies had been in the house when the barn blew up. Still, we lost some of our stuff in the explosion. Half our sleeping bags were gone, along with most of our personal effects that we hadn't carried out with us. We gathered up what we had, salvaged what we could, and headed off down the road.

We knew it would be a lot harder than it was getting to the farm, since we had little idea of where we were going and no maps. However, we did find a compass in the house, which we were able to use to discern which way was north. Once we knew that, we planned to just keep walking until we wandered into Vermont, or an adjacent state, and work our way over to Danny's location from there.

We followed that pattern all day, keeping to the woods as before, and when we were all tired out, we settled down to rest. There were a limited number of sleeping bags now, so more of us were set up on watch. I took the first watch with Annie, Pablo, Angie, and a few of the others.

Annie came and sat down next to me. "Now that Xavier's gone… how are we gonna find a way to end this madness?" I could see the dread on her face. I put my arm around her to reassure her.

"Don't worry. I'll figure something out." After a few hours, we woke up the people for second watch, and then used the remaining sleeping bags to try and get what little rest we could.


	10. House of Cards

Chapter 10

House of Cards

We kept walking for several days. It got cooler as we moved north, but only slightly. We made good time, and for the most part we were able to keep away from any large groups of walkers. Still, it was almost impossible to avoid them entirely.

As we walked, we would sometimes notice herds of them in the distance. They moved like they were in packs. Like wolves, or sharks. Thankfully, they never got too close.

We also tried to avoid heavily populated areas, but we weren't able to avoid them entirely. Eventually we ended up in a small town, and we decided to stay there for the night. We walked in a loose group, talking quietly amongst ourselves. I held Annie's hand in one of my own, and the other held my spear. She had her assault rifle slung over her shoulder.

Suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my leg. I looked down and to my horror saw a walker with it's jaw wrapped around my leg. It must have crawled out from under one of the cars on the side of the road. I screamed and stabbed at it as burning, caustic pain shot through my body.

Annie turned around and unslung her assault rifle. Seemingly without even thinking, she opened fire on the walker, killing it quickly. A few of the walkers down the street turned toward us, and she sent some bursts their way too. The others started opening fire as well, and as they did I fell to the ground, trying to gather my wits about me.

As more walkers poured out of the buildings around us, I pulled out my shotgun, hoping to do some damage before I was too far gone. I spotted a building that didn't seem to have too many zombies near it, and called out to the others to head towards it. Annie helped me up, still spraying fire in all directions as she did so.

We got to the building fairly quickly, keeping the walkers at bay. Still, we could see them gathering in force. My leg was bleeding quickly now, and I was starting to feel lightheaded. It felt like the bite had severed a major blood vessel. It was becoming clear that there wasn't much time left.

Once we were inside, Annie helped me to lie down near the back on the structure. I held her hand close to my chest. She looked down at me, and I could see the pain in her eyes. She was trying to hold it back. I saw her trying to be strong, and I loved her so much in that moment. I felt heat rising to my face and tears in my eyes as I pulled her into my arms.

I held her as close to me as I could, even though my bones felt like they could shatter at any second. "Leave me here," I whispered.

I felt her shudder against me. Her tears dripped onto my cheeks and mingled with my own. "You know I can't do that."

"Baby, I know it'll be hard. I know more than you realize. But I need you to be strong for me, love. I don't want to go, but I have to." I kissed her lightly on the lips, one last time. "I promise you, we'll meet again someday."

"Keith, I'm not leaving you." I could feel my eyelids getting heavier by the second.

"Please," I begged. "At least after I… Don't put me down. The second I'm gone, I want you to run away from here as fast as you can. I don't want any blood on your hands."

She hesitated, but eventually nodded. I nodded in reply, and then lay back. My last thoughts were of my love for her as I drifted away in her arms.

_Dear Reader,_

_I do not like sad endings like this one. Unfortunately, this fanfic is inspired by my own life, and sometimes in life we encounter sad endings. I have come upon one of these endings, and as a result no longer have the energy to continue the story._

_However! In the future, I may be convinced to write an alternate ending or continuation if you so desire. If you do, please send me a PM saying so, and I will consider it. Also, some of the other writers who are helping co-write this story may add new chapters of their own._

_Thank you all very much for reading this story. I hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it._


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